American Scholarship: Nostalgia and Prediction

Extract

ForSome reason, understandable by Providence only, it was decided that the most ancient member of Phi Beta Kappa roundabout should talk for a while to the second group of students elected to nearly the youngest chapter of the Society. I consider it an imposition on you but insofar as I am concerned it is an honor. To be sure, there really is no generation gap here insofar as Notre Dame is concerned. It could have had a chapter long ago had it not been for temporary obscurantism in high places. I like to think that the spirits of the distinguished men of learning and inquiry who lived on this campus during times long past, Zahm, Nieuwland and Scheier among them, may be watching in Our Town fashion what we are doing this day. Perhaps Emerson, in spite of his absentmindedness, has come along to join them. For it was he who fixed the imprint of approval on the whole enterprise.