Publisher's Synopsis
When George William Curtis had received from Har vard her greatest degree, he arose at the Alumni Dinner and said, In the old Italian story the nobleman turns out of the hot street crowded with eager faces into the cool ness and silence of his palace. As he looks at the pictures of the long line of ancestors he hears a voice, - or is it his own heart beatingp - which says to him noblesse oblige. The youngest scion of the oldest house is pledged by all the virtues and honor of his ancestry to a life not unworthy his lineage. When I came here I was not a nobleman, but to-day I have been ennobled. The youngest doctor of the oldest school, I too, say with the Italian, noblesse oblige. Iam pledged by all the honorable traditions of the noble family into which I am this day adopted. You, my friends, are ennobled by the diploma of a school, rich in traditions of high endeavor and actual service. Shall those traditions fail to enter your hearts, and to quicken your energies, and to chasten your ambitions? This ques tion you are not now competent to answer, and you will not be competent until you have lived your lives.
