ADDRESS OF WELCOME TO THE UNIVERSITY
By President Alderman
Governor Davis has welcomed you to the Commonwealth of Virginia.
I shall not seek or hope to add to the graciousness of that welcome, but I
may venture to focus its friendliness upon this particular spot in the Commonwealth—this
University which here to-day inaugurates this celebration
of remembrance and hope in commemoration of the One Hundredth Anniversary
of its birth, and which I take leave to describe as the highest intellectual
achievement of an old and distinguished American state. It was
founded by a lover of human freedom whose political philosophy was based
upon absolute faith in the ultimate wisdom and integrity of trained men.
Guided by sincere scholars who held that faith in their thinking and lived it
in their lives, stamped with opulent beauty of form and girt about with fair
landscapes and encircling hills, it has been at work during one century, distinguished
above all other centuries, perhaps, for its fruitful pursuit of
justice in society and truth in science. In peace and in war, amid all the
vicissitudes that beset free men threading their way to higher destinies, here
it has stood a steadfast thing of force and dignity striving to augment the
forces of nature and to ally them to the uses of mankind, to mix beauty with
strength in the framework of democracy, and to establish in the life of the
great republican experiment enduring standards of personal integrity and
public virtue. What contributions it has precisely made to American civilization
belong to the educational history of the nation, and these have been
recently set forth with sympathetic skill and faithful accuracy by a distinguished
son of this University. We have yielded to this very human
impulse, characteristic of institutions as well as of men, to mark a milestone
in an endless career, not primarily to recite the glories of the past but to
envisage the responsibilities of the future. We recognize in this air the
ethical binding force of that reverence for the past without which there can
be no true continuity in human institutions. We believe indeed that all
healthy growth somehow proceeds out of the tissues of ancient strength,
but our enthusiasm is for the future and our vision is a vision of potential
youth of this and other ages pressing forward to carry on the work of an ever
better world.
In behalf of the Governing Bodies and Faculties of the University of
Virginia, I, therefore, welcome you to this birthday festival: Delegates of Universities
and Colleges, representatives of Learned Societies and Foundations
in this and other lands, guests of the University, and in a way of peculiar
affection, sons of this mature and vigorous mother, those whom the years
have whitened, those who bear the work of the world in the middle period,
and these young scions who climb about the knees of Alma Mater in love
and gaiety. I am aware that thousands of miles and centuries separate
you in space and time. Institutions are represented here to-day which were
venerable when our continent lay unknown in these western seas, while
others have sprung into life in answer to the cry of democratic need in the
last decade; but, nevertheless, it is as a homogeneous family that I welcome
you—a brotherhood of cultural force and endeavor, a fellowship of scholars,
blood kin in intellect and purpose, holding the promise of the future as they
have yielded the fruit of the past. Whatever we have to offer of personal
affection and esteem, of historic significance, of memories of old eager
teachers who showed to by-gone generations "the high, white star of truth,"
of present hope and intent, is yours, my colleagues.
We who now serve these Virginia altars are heartened by your presence
and sympathy, enlightened by your counsel and stimulated by your example.
Standing upon the lintels of a new age, the University of Virginia is as of
old still glad to learn and glad to teach. Like Ajax praying for light to see
his foeman's face on the darkness of the Trojan plain, we humbly ask
Almighty God for strength and opportunity to face whatever is before us
with enlightened minds, organized wills, and uplifted hearts.
