University of Virginia Library

A PLEA FOR THE PERFECT

By William Jackson Humphreys, Ph.D., of the United States Weather Bureau

The most insistent appeal to the intellect, and the most effective in
every line of human progress, is the call of the perfect. The paintings of the
great masters arouse an admiration akin to reverence, and inspire us ourselves
to work for the faultless in whatever we do. And the same is true of
architecture. He that has an intelligence at all measurably above that of the
beast of the field is himself ennobled by the presence of a beautiful building.
The towering spires of a Gothic cathedral, the stately columns of a Grecian
temple, the restful roof of a Buddhist shrine, evoke alike a reverence and a
high resolve to live the better life.

In statuary, too, and in every other art, the compelling call is the same.
Who can behold that most wonderful, perhaps, of all statues, the Daibutsu
of Kamakura, and not be thrilled by its magical calm—the peace of
Nirvana, the calm of death and eternity?

As it is in these few great things and noble arts, so it is likewise with all
the others, perfection and perfection alone—accomplishment in which no
fault can be found—commands unqualified admiration for the work of
others, and sets the satisfying goal of our own endeavors.

And now let us come home and be more specific. We here at the University
of Virginia are wont to speak of the Sage of Monticello in tones that
evidence respect and appreciation. But how did he come to be a sage?
Not alone by his invariable honesty of purpose, nor solely by his splendid
ability; but in great measure through his transcendent capacity to take
trouble—his patience to make perfect. And that over which he labored the
longest, the University of Virginia, he loved the most. He realized, as all of us
must, that without intellectual training political independence is impossible,
and religious freedom only moral chaos. Thus the most patient labor of all
his maturer years, the labor of his deepest love and most abiding hope, was
the founding of an educational institution perfect in all its plans and purposes.
An institution in which the student was from the first trusted as a
man of honor, a trust promptly justified and that has become a priceless
heritage; an institution manned by scholars of high renown who mingled
freely and most friendly with those who came to learn of their wisdom; and,
finally, an institution whose very columns and arches and domes, whose
harmonious assemblage of much of the architectural glory of Greece and
grandeur of Rome, insistently inspires to higher resolves.

Here, as nowhere else, one comes under the abiding influence of the
father of the University of Virginia, of him who heard so clearly and heeded
so well the call of the perfect. Here thousands have heard that same call,
and many have heeded in their several ways. Here, we believe, this call

was ever present with him who has enriched literature, as long as man shall
read, with such compelling and varied classics as The Bells, The Raven, and
Annabel Lee. Here, too, all was in harmony with the firm resolve and high
purpose of him who but yesterday bade a despairing world to hope—bade
it hope by showing so clearly a rational and righteous road every nation can
follow, and yet in some fashion will follow, for civilization shall not perish
from the face of the earth.

So reasoned the poet Longfellow many years ago, and the case is miserably
worse to-day. The burdens of taxation are oppressively heavy. Some
say owing to the scientific work done by the National Government, aye, even
to the duplication of such work in the city of Washington! "Blind leaders,
who strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel." Had the world not been filled
with terror, had there been no "wealth bestowed on camps," the present
tax on one luxury alone, tobacco, would meet, or nearly meet, the whole of
the Government's needs—nor is this tax overly heavy, nor are our people
inordinate burners of incense before the goddess Nicotine.

The burdens of the world would, indeed, be unbearable were it not
becoming clear as the noonday sun that they are avoidable, and that, being
avoidable, they soon will be avoided. We are but in the throes of one stage
of community evolution, an evolution from the isolated savage through
the tribe, the clan, the state and the nation to the federation of the civilized
world, an evolution that has always closely followed, and of necessity must
closely follow, the development of the arts of travel and communication.
That is, as science progresses and its applications are made perfect our
relations to each other whether as individuals, communities, or nations, also
vary. To the ignorant savage restricted by natural barriers to a small
island, or other limited territory, no form of government is desirable or possible
beyond that of a primitive tribe. To the most advanced peoples of
to-day, however, those who literally can talk to each other though at the ends
of the earth, and to whose swift and easy travel there is no obstacle, the
restrictions of the tribe and the clan would be intolerable and impracticable.
To them nothing short of some form of a universal federation can be satisfactory.
One's friends and acquaintances to-day, and his councillors and
aids in whatever he is doing, are in every inhabited portion of the globe.
We cannot do without each other, neither they without us nor we without
them. Hence our plea for the perfect includes the bringing of nations together

into that form of mutual support that most encourages the growth
of each and makes for the good of all.

Now, as is known of the whole world, in the great work of formulating
a code adapted to the needs and aspirations of those in the very van of
civilization the University of Virginia can claim high honors. First,
through her great "father" and again, equally, through her most distinguished
alumnus.

But let us be critical, for self-criticism is always wholesome. What
has been the growth of science and its application to the arts since our
Alma Mater began her splendid training of young men, less than one century
ago? And what part have we, her alumni, taken in this conquest of nature?
Every chapter in the story of modern science is amazing almost beyond
belief. We live to-day in essentially a different world from that of our
grandfathers, different in many respects from even that of our own boyhood
days; and the difference is this, that the world is a better place to live in
than it was, so much so, indeed, that many of the things we now regard
as common necessities only a little while ago were not possible even as
luxuries.

Consider some of the more common events in the course of one's daily
life. All of us remember, or, at least, know those who do remember, when
that morning necessity, the ubiquitous bathtub, was practically unknown.
Of course a few buckets of water, carried from the spring and emptied into
the old wash-tub, were really worth while, but the undertaking was such a
tax on one's moral courage, that baths before breakfast were not then the
order of the day. And the cooking of breakfast, what a job it was! Coals,
kept alive through the night by a cover of ashes, were scraped out and a
wood fire kindled, not in the convenient stove, for no one had such a contrivance,
but in a big fire place, and after a time one had something to eat.
Rarely, though, did he have fresh meat (cold storage was unknown) nor did
he ever have the luxury of fresh fruits and fresh vegetables save those
alone that grew in his own locality, nor even these except in their limited
season. Who of the first faculty, or early students, of this University ever
wholesomely and delightfully began his breakfast with grape-fruit, oranges,
pineapples, mangos, or any other of the delicious tropical fruits that now
load our tables? And who in the tropics ever then tasted an apple, a pear,
a peach, a plum, or a cherry? Who in those days, here or elsewhere, ever
feasted on that luscious and most common, perhaps, of all vegetables, the
tomato—then regarded as a thing not only unfit for food, but even deadly
poisonous?

If, as was sometimes the case, you had occasion to write to a friend,
you did so with a goose-quill pen, blotted with sand, sealed with wax, and
forwarded your letter at the marvelous speed of, perhaps, twenty miles a

day. If you had to talk to even a neighbor, and he was beyond hallooing
distance, you simply had to go in person to see him, and, whatever the distance,
you could only walk, ride horseback, or go in a lumbering carriage.

If mother wanted to dye a piece of cloth she herself, most likely, had
spun and woven, she did not choose exactly the hue and tint, or shade, she
would have and then send us to a convenient drug store to get, for a few
pennies, precisely that thing, but sent us to the woods for the inner bark of a
black oak. This she steeped according to traditional custom, then dipped
the cloth in the decoction thus obtained, and accepted with fortitude
whatever stain happened to result.

Of course we did not often become ill, for only the most robust survived
babyhood, but when we did get sick it generally was the herb doctor that
came to see us, and the concoctions he made at least inspired an earnest hope
for a rapid convalescence. If, perchance, the case called for surgery, we
were indeed unfortunate. What we now call major surgery, and even much
that is essentially minor, was rarely ventured. Small operations of course
were made, but on the conscious patient and with a dirty knife. There were
no hospitals, except in the largest cities, and even these were at times centers
of infection rather than restorative institutions.

Whether, however, one got sick in those days and sent for the neighborhood
herbist, or stayed well and hoed the corn, pealed bark to dye the home
spun, or did whatever other chores the exigencies of a primitive life demanded,
the end of the day at last came as it now comes. But when it did
come there was then no movie to go to, whether instructive, amusing, or
demoralizing; no graphophone to stage a grand opera, materialize a brass band,
or set amuck a barbaric jazz, as one's whims and fancies might suggest; no
phone to chat over; no good light, electric or other kind, to ready by—only a
flickering home-made tallow candle, or sputtering pine torch, that for a
few minutes flared up unsteadily and then went out. Finally, at the end of
every such "perfect day," one scraped the live embers together and covered
them with ashes for starting the morning's fire, saw that all windows were
closed tight, the door bolted, and every other possible ventilator sealed up
lest any of the "noxious night air" might get in, and then went to sleep, to
dream, perhaps, of witches and hobgoblins, in a bed as innocent of springs as
a concrete floor.

True, we often speak, and speak earnestly, of the good old days of yore,
but in so doing we really have in mind the buoyancy of our own vigorous
youth and the loved ones of our childhood days. We never mean that we
would like to discard the latest conveniences and go back, not to our earlier
age, for all of us would like to be young again, but to the way the world lived
only a few decades ago.

Perhaps this reference to a few decades may seem extravagant, but in

reality it is not, for our knowledge of nature and the harnessing of natural
forces to our own needs grew so rapidly, and with such acceleration, with the
founding of laboratories and the consequent spread of inquiry that men
still living have seen half, aye, more than half, of that wonderful evolution
from the stick and stone of the cave man to the myriad marvels of the present.
Take from the air every aeroplane; from the roads every automobile;
from the country every train; from the cities every electric light; from ships
every wireless apparatus; from the oceans all cables; from the land all
wires; from shops all motors; from office buildings every elevator, telephone
and typewriter; let epidemics spread at will; let major surgery be impossible
—all this and vastly more would be the terrible catastrophe if the tide of
time should but ebb to the childhood days of men still living.

Nor do all those marvels exhaust our list. Give us a lump of coal, a
piece of sulphur and a bit of salt, and we will now, as but a few years ago
we could not, work such wonders as even Aladdin with his magical lamp
never dreamed of—make brighter, faster and more varied colors than are
found in field or forest; sweeter perfumes than scent the flowers; richer
flavors than season the fruit; food for plants that shames the richest soil;
explosives that rend the hardest rock; cures for many an ill; and poisons
more deadly than ever a Borgia desired. In short, with even these few raw
materials, we now raise our food, delight the palate, adorn the body, cure
ourselves, and kill the enemy!

Oh yes, the scoffer of science may say, but no exploring De Soto has
ever found the elixir of life. No, we must confess, not yet in all its perfection,
but the persistent biologist has found it for some animals, and has
successfully applied it. Already he has made excised portions of the heart
of the embryo chick live and grow until the chick itself, had it been permitted
to grow up, might well have been dead of age—and still that lone,
excised heart lived on. Already well-organized animals have been made to live
forwards and backwards from youth to age and from age to youth over and
over with never a sign that the end was near. What then is beyond our
reasonable hope? But to realize that hope we must heed the call of the perfect,
must push those investigations, as surely we shall, and the thousands
of others they in turn suggest, to their ultimate conclusion.

Finally, what have we, faculty, students, and alumni, of this University,
been doing the while this great stream of investigation and discovery has
been broadening and deepening into a veritable ocean of knowledge? We
have made many contributions to this knowledge, and of that we are justly
proud, but not all of us have lived up to our opportunities.

Let us, therefore, insist that each important position in this University
is an opportunity, as it is in any leading institution, to add to the sum of
human knowledge, and that opportunity is only another name for imperative

duty. Let it further be recognized, indeed let it become a compelling
unwritten law, that opportunity shall be given only to him who has demonstrated
his ability to improve it, and that the shirking of duty carries with it
the forfeiture of place. Possibly such a custom might seem a little drastic,
but it would be no more so, nor is there less reason for it, than is the wholesome
honor system among students. Nor let us alumni require ought of
others that we do not in equal measure demand of ourselves.

But how, it occasionally is asked, can any man both investigate and
teach? A far better question is this: How can he teach advanced students,
at least, if he has not that love of his subject that compels him to investigate?
None but the enthusiast can impart to others an earnest desire
to learn—blood does not come from turnips. Furthermore, wherever the
spark of genius shows, and if it be accompanied by industry, in the name of
humanity fan it—give its possessor every needed aid and encouragement.
Fan the live spark. No one ever yet got a glowing fire by fanning dead
embers.

And here let us once more urge our plea for the perfect. Let an investigation,
whether large or small, be given ample time, patience, and trouble.
Let it be so worked over, yea, so persistently labored over, that there can
be no occasion for any one to repeat it until other discoveries reveal a better
line of attack, or greater skill in instrumentation provides a desirable higher
degree of accuracy. And let the report, whether of progress or of finished
result, be brief. Let not our reasons be, as were those of Gratiano, "as two
grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff," where they are not worth the
trouble it takes to find them. Neither let our ideas be muddled like those
of the freshman who said he knew who Esau was—"the chap that wrote
short stories and sold his copyright for a mess of potash." In short, have
something to say, say it, quit talking about it. But above all have something
to say.