It is questionable if it is desirable for the conscientious young man to encourage in his life a too critical tendency. It is not necessary to look at the bright side of the affairs of life, or even to look upon men charitably, so to speak. It is sufficient for every young man especially to look upon events of life as they are. It is decidedly important for the man of aspiration to look upon life with its duties when he has had sufficient rest and food and exercise. Wrongs may be righted and errors corrected in but two ways: the thoughtful way and the thoughtless way. The thoughtful way is always attendant of health and with a broad minded and large hearted individual. It is not our desire, however, to dwell too long upon the subject in the abstract as we are anxious to reprint the closing words of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge’s Phi Beta Kappa oration delivered last June at Harvard College. He said in closing: “How then is a university to reach the results we ought to have from its teachings in this country and this period? Some persons may reply that it can be obtained by making the university training more practical. Much has been said on the point first and last, but the theory, which is vague at best, seems to me to have no bearing here. It is not a practical education which we seek in this regard, but a liberal education. Our search now and here is not for an education which shall enable a man to earn his living with the least possible delay; but for a training which shall develop character and mind along certain lines. “To all her students alike it is Harvard’s duty to give that which will send them out from her gates able to understand and to sympathize with the life of the time. This cannot be done by rules or systems or text-books. It can come from the subtile, impalpable, and yet powerful influences which the spirit and atmosphere of the great university can exert upon those within its care. It is not easy to define or classify these influences although we all know their general effect. Nevertheless, it is, I think, possible to get at something sufficiently definite to indicate what is lacking and where the peril lies. It all turns on the spirit which inspires the entire collegiate body, on the mental attitude of the university as a whole. This brings us at once to the danger which I think confronts all our large universities to-day, and which I am sure confronts that university which I know and love best. We are given over too much to the critical spirit and we are educating men to become critics of other men instead of doers of deeds themselves.