contemplative view of nature and human life. We study the past to know the present. Man finds himself only by a broad view of the world and of history, together with a deep insight into his own being. Our present institutions are understood better when viewed historically; in the light of history our present opportunities and obligations assume fuller significance.
By the mingling of two streams, one flowing from the sacred founts of Greece and Rome, the other springing from among the rocks and pines of the German forests, a current of civilization was formed which swept onward and broadened into a placid and powerful river. Let us view the character of the present period, and learn to value what has come down to us from the past—our heritage of institutions and ideas, a heritage derived from the two sources, Greco-Roman and Teutonic.
The independent, practical, investigating energy of the Teutonic character has made this an age of scientific discovery and material progress. The forces of nature are turned to man's uses. Science discovers and proclaims the laws of nature's processes, and evolution admits that, in view of every phenomenon, we are in the presence of an inscrutable energy that orders and sustains all nature's manifestations. The ideas of the Christian religion, universally received by the new peoples, in the course of centuries have forced themselves in their full meaning upon the minds of men, and they determine more than all else the altruistic spirit of the age. Altruism is the soul of Christianity; it has become a forceful and practical idea, and it promises greater changes
