Page:Moral Obligation to be Intelligent.djvu/49

 following of truth, the reverent touching of the hem of her garment, is not, as we may have thought, a privilege, nor is even the love of truth a virtue, until it is converted into a responsibility toward others. Few of us care to challenge this teaching. We share in the will to serve, not merely as an annual attitude, but as a year-long passion, until it becomes our one authentic motive to good living—or, if we disobey it, a witness against us, incessant and uncomfortable. No wonder that at commencement time particularly, at a moment of success and hope, the instinct of the young graduate is to hear the call to service, and the instinct of the speaker is to sound it.

Yet some of us hesitate. So long as the mind is enclosed within the happy commencement scene, the circle of well-intending graduates, affectionate parents, and earnest teachers, it is easy to say