Excerpt from The New Epoch and the University: Oration Delivered Before the Phi Beta Kappa Society in Sanders Threatre, Cambridge, Thursday, June 25, 1896

There is a capacity in the mind which can be developed to meet these dangers. The antidote for these evils which selfishness begets is that power which, working in many ways and for many objects, takes a man out of himself and is called love, whether that love be for human beings, for animal life, for inanimate objects, or for laws and principles which are as real as anything else. The education of the men who are to do the work of the new epoch must not only train them and teach them, but must fill them with that interest and enthusiasm which engenders love. This can be done; the more complicated the work and the higher the education, the more interest the worker finds to make him love his work. Every man who has entered earnestly into the study of the powers of nature, into the design of works which are to utilize those powers, or the execution of the plans which the world is profiting by, knows that this is true. The ordinary workman who works for wages only, does not feel this love; the professional man whose profession is simply a source of income, is little better; but educa tion can be so directed that no man can really enter into the spirit of the work for which this education has trained him, without caring more for the work than for the profit, without an interest which is really love. The men who are to save the new civiliza tion from business trickery, commercial cruelty, and selfish indul gence must feel this interest in the work they do; they must seek the best results because they love the best they must do their work because they love it, not perhaps with all their heart and soul, but with the full strength of their intellectual capacity. This love for their work has characterized the best students and investigators in all ages. With the change which the manufac ture of power has introduced, it should exist in every branch of work which deals with the utilization of the great sources of power in nature. The university will fail in its duty to the community if it does not inspire young men with a love for their work.

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