the course of developing thought in Europe as in this country. Exact in their processes, philosophical and scientific in their methods, unselfish in their devotion, they were broad of view. It is for them to realize in a future not remote the University ideal pictured, and correctly pictured, from this stage by one who here preceded me a short six months ago. They, constituting the University, are the "hope of the State in the direction of its practical affairs; in teaching the lawyer the better standards of his profession, his duty to place character above money making; in teaching the legislator the philosophy of legislation, and that the constructive forces of legislation carefully considered should precede every effort to change an existing status; in teaching those in official life, executive and judicial, that demagogy, and theories of life uncontrolled by true principles, do not make for success, when final success is considered, but that, if they did lead to success, they should be avoided for their inherent imperfection.… The province of the University is to educate citizenship in the abstract."
It is the presence of this class, to those composing which I bow as distinctly of a period superior to mine, that you owe my presence to-day,—whatever that presence may be worth. I regard their existence and their coming forward in such institutions as this University of South Carolina, as the arc of the bow of promise spanning the political horizon of our future.
Through you, to them my message is addressed.
