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Show 336 337 CHAIRMAN Norm-m: You will have the pleasure now of hearing the second Yale man who honors us with his presence here this evening, President S. P. Brooks, of the Baylor University, Texas, who will address us on "Civilization; 3 Cry for Peace." ground. hit the present ought to pride itself by as tnuch as it may use the past and use it to the honor and glory of our country and to tile good of humanity. One may look at the development of humanity through the savagery of the hunting stage when men wandered over the face of the earth here and there, capturing others in war and feeding upon their prisoners; and later instead of eating their prisoners they sold them into slavery; and later instead of selling them into slavery they exchanged them as prisoners of war, a la civilization. Yet,as we have heard here tonight and as those of us who can read Civilization; a Cry for Peace PRESIDENT S. P. BROOKS The subject announced is "Civilization; a Cry for Peace." Briefly, civilization is impossible amongr barbarians. The chief Sign of barbarism is the distrust that we find among the men and women of any given nation of barbarians. As a matter of fact the natural and the normal attitude that men ought to have toward each other is not distrust, but confidence, for confidence is the chief sign of civilization. . ll -:unurlnm‘ WNW!" \Var arises out of distrust and fear. and confidence grows upon that upon which it feeds. \Var and savagery make constant contest with peace and civilization. It was ever so and ever will be, and the very suggestion of the word "civilization" brings to your mind at once and to mine the very antithesis of the savages of the forest or of the barbarians that feed upon each other. In all the development of human history God has never done for a people what they could do for themselves. lt is so of the individual: it is so of the nation. God gives the birthright and man gives the development. God gives us the child and man gives him training. God gives the brain and man develops the thought. (iod gnes us. as l have said, our nativity, but we would starve in the presence of plenty except that we use the hands and the feet and the body and brain that God has given to us. Civ- ilization through the years has not come to us by the stroke of any pen or the speech of any man. It has come through pain and time, through years, aye, through the ages. It is but the discovery of the people, for in all the history of mankind men have done about the best they could. We do better today, I doubt not, than we used to do. " Some people pride themselves on their relation to the past, and are great only by as much as their ancestors are in the the future somewhat can see, in the future, and the not distant future at that, men will not need either to be eaten, to be sold into slavery or to be exchanged as prisoners of war, for it will be through the school of diplomacy and the wisdom of arbitration rather than at the point of the boyonet or the gun that the difiiculties of the future will be settled. The pastoral stage, warlike and poetic and wine-drinking as it was, was higher than the hunting stage, for there we began the domestication of the animals. With the advent of the plow, with the coming of agriculture, we have the domestication of the animals brought to a higher stage, and with the coming of the plow has come civiliza- tion's best, the home, one husband, one wife, church, school, state, and it was through the ages that men have discovered that these are better than that which came before. Let it be under- stood that we are groping today in the dark and we cannot fore- see exactly the future, but by as much as we are able to heed the past we know that we are wise. We have discovered that peace is better than war. Some men yet in a city like this, some men yet in the East and the West and the South believe that it is the dream of dreamers and a man who would leave his home and come a thousand miles to talk or to hear talk is himself a fit subject for the insane asylum. But the time will come, though some of us may be lost to the world's gaze-the time will come in the near future when men will see to the contrary. That the field of battle is not the only field of patriotism, men of affairs and men of schooling, men of the church and men of the state are coming to see; and some men can see that the gateway to fame and the gateway to social service is no longer WNW! MIILL vii |