Abstract
SIR JOSIAH was emphatic that civilisation is at the crossroads; it may go one way under the influence of mass desire and mass impression, or the other way under the influence of intellectual and moral leadership. If a university is not a great force, if the members of a university are not a great force in that decision, then who is? Where are we to look for it? In this crisis in civilisation there is a terrific responsibility on university graduates for elasticity of mind, probity and clarity of judgment, and industry of thought on the concrete issue before them. There are many great issues on moral principles in these days, when the widely-held view is that the proper place for a path is the edge of the precipice. The world is full of good people who are thoroughly muddle-headed; this is a time for level-headed decisions and carefully worked out ones. Sir Josiah concluded with a call to the students to be true to the great ideals the university has given them; and to try to make the university what he believes it ought always to be somewhere where the reasoned thought and soul of our country can have the perpetual association of great ideas, the discipline of serious and persistent aims, the purification of candid and purging humour, and lastly the company of souls that are kindled to noble purposes.
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The Universities and Civilisation. Nature 130, 53–54 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/130053e0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/130053e0