small fraction of the graduates, and the prime end and prime object of an educational institution should be to turn out men who will be able to shift for themselves, to help themselves, and to help others, fully independent of all matters connected with the Government. I feel very strongly on this subject, and I feel it just as strongly in America as I do here.
Another thing, gentlemen, and now I want to speak to you for a moment from the religious standpoint, to speak to you in connection with the work of this mission. I wish I could make every member of a Christian church feel that just in so far as he spends his time in quarrelling with other Christians of other churches he is helping to discredit Christianity in the eyes of the world. Avoid as you would the plague those who seek to embroil you in conflict, one Christian sect with another. Not only does what I am about to say apply to the behavior of Christians towards one another, but of all Christians towards their non-Christian brethren, towards their fellow-citizens of another creed. You can do most for the colleges from which you come, you can do most for the creed which you profess, by doing your work in the position to which you have been called in a way that brings the respect of your fellow-men to you, and therefore to those for whom you stand. Let it be a matter of pride with the Christian in the army that in the time of danger no man is nearer that danger than he is. Let it be a matter of pride to the officer whose duty it is to fight that no man, when the country calls on him to fight, fights better than he does. That is how you can do more for Christianity, for the name of Christians, you who are in the army. Let the man in a civil governmental position so bear himself that it shall be acceptable as axiomatic that when you have a Christian, a graduate of a missionary school, in a public office, the efficiency and honesty of that office are guaranteed. That is the kind of Christianity that counts in a public official, that counts in the military official—the Christianity that makes him do his duty in war, or makes him do his duty in peace. And you—who I hope will be the great majority—who are not in Government service, can conduct yourselves so that your neighbors shall have every respect for your courage, your honesty, your good faith, shall have implicit trust that you will deal religiously with your brother as man to man, whether it be in business or whether it be in connection with your relations to the community as a whole. The kind of graduate of a Christian school really worth calling a Christian is the man who shows his creed practically by the way he behaves towards his wife and towards his children, towards his neighbor, towards those with whom he deals in the business world, and towards the city and Government. In no way can he do as much for the institution that trains him, in no way can he do as much to bring respect and regard to the creed that he professes. And, remember, you need more than one quality. I have spoken of courage; it is, of course, the first virtue of the soldier, but every one of you who is worth his salt must have it in him too. Do not forget that the good man who is afraid is only a handicap to his fellows who are striving for what is best. I want to see each Christian cultivate the manly virtues; each to be able to hold his own in the country, but in a broil not thrusting himself forward. Avoid quarrelling wherever you can. Make it evident that the other man wants to avoid quarrelling with you too.
One closing word. Do not make the mistake, those of you who are young men, of thinking that when you get out of school or college your education stops. On the contrary, it is only about half begun. Now, I am fifty years old, and if I had stopped learning, if I felt now that I had stopped learning, had stopped trying to better myself, I feel that my usefulness to the community would be pretty nearly at an end. And I want each of you, as he leaves college, not to feel, "Now I have had my education, I can afford to vegetate." I want you to feel, "I have been given a great opportunity of laying deep the foundations for a ripe education, and while going on with my work I am going to keep training myself, educating myself, so that year by year, decade by decade, instead of standing still I shall go forward, and grow constantly fitter, and do good work and better work."
I visited, many years ago, the college at Beirut. I have known at first hand what excellent work was being done there. Unfortunately, owing to my very limited time, it is not going to be possible for me to stop at the college at Assiut, which has done such admirable work in Egypt and here in the Sudan, whose graduates I meet in all kinds of occupations wherever I stop. I am proud, as an American, Dr. Giffen, of what has been done by men like you, like Mr. Young, like the other Americans who have been here, and, I want to say still further, by the women who have come with them. I always thought that the American was a pretty good fellow. I think his wife is still better, and, great though my respect for the man from America has been, my respect for the woman has been greater.
I stopped a few days ago at the little mission at the Sobat. One of the things that struck me there was what was being accomplished by the medical side of that mission. From one hundred and twenty-five miles around there were patients who had come in to be attended to by the doctors in the mission. There were about thirty patients who were under the charge of the surgeon, the doctor, at that mission. I do not know a better type of missionary than the doctor who comes out here and does his work well and gives his whole heart to it. He is doing practical work of the most valuable type for civilization, and for bringing the people of the country up to a realization of the standards that you are trying to set. If you make it evident to a man that you are sincerely concerned in bettering his body, he will be much more ready to believe that you are trying to better his soul.
Now, gentlemen, it has been a great pleasure to see you. When I get back to the United States, this meeting is one of the things I shall have to tell to my people at home, so that I may give them an idea of what is being done in this country. I wish you well with all my heart, and I thank you for having received me to-day.
Law and Order in Egypt
It is to me a peculiar pleasure to speak to-day under such distinguished auspices as yours, Prince Fouad,3 before this National University, and it is of good augury for the great cause of higher education in Egypt that it should have enlisted the special interest of so distinguished and eminent a man. The Arabic-speaking world produced the great University of Cordova, which flourished a thousand years ago, and was a source of light and learning when the rest of Europe was either in twilight or darkness; in the centuries following the creation of that Spanish Moslem university, Arabic men of science, travellers, and geographers—such as the noteworthy African traveller Ibn Batutu, a copy of whose book, by the way, I saw yesterday in the library of the Alhazar4—were teachers whose works are still to be eagerly studied; and I trust that here we shall see the revival, and more than the revival, of the conditions that made possible such contributions to the growth of civilization.
This scheme of a National University is fraught with literally untold possibilities for good to your country. You have many rocks ahead of which you must steer clear; and because I am your earnest friend and well-wisher, I desire to point out one or two of these which it is necessary especially to avoid. In the first place, there is one point upon which I always lay stress in my own country, in your country, in all countries—the need of entire honesty as the only foundation on which it is safe to build. It is a prime essential that all who are in any way responsible for the beginnings of the University shall make it evident to every one that the management of the University, financial and otherwise, will be conducted with absolute honesty. Very much money will have to be raised and expended for this University in order to make it what it can and ought to be made; for, if properly managed, I firmly believe that it will become one of the greatest influences, and perhaps the very greatest influence, for good in all that part of the world where Mohammedanism is the leading religion; that is, in all those regions of the Orient, including North Africa and Southwestern Asia, which stretch from the Atlantic Ocean to the farther confines of India and to the hither provinces of China. This University should have a profound influence in all things educational, social, economic, industrial, throughout this whole region, because of the very fact of Egypt's immense strategic importance, so to speak, in the world of the Orient; an importance due partly to her geographical position, partly to other causes. Moreover, it is most fortunate that Egypt's present position is such that this University will enjoy a freedom hitherto unparalleled in the investigation and testing out of all problems vital to the future of the peoples of the Orient.
Nor will the importance of this University be confined to