But if you must be in the struggle, the more reason you should know why, before it begins, and have a say in the decision whether it is to begin.  The youth who went to the war had no such knowledge, no such say; I am sure the survivors, of whom there must be a number here to-day, want you to be wiser than they were, and are certainly determined to be wiser next time themselves.  If you are to get that partnership, which, once gained, is to be for mutual benefit, it will be, I should say, by banding yourselves with these men, not defiantly but firmly, not for selfish ends but for your country’s good.  In the meantime they have one bulwark; they have a General who is befriending them as I think never, after the fighting was over, has a General befriended his men before.  Perhaps the seemly thing would be for us, their betters, to elect one of these young survivors of the carnage to be our Rector.  He ought now to know a few things about war that are worth our hearing.  If his theme were the Rector’s favourite, diligence.  I should be afraid of his advising a great many of us to be diligent in sitting still and doing no more harm.

Of course he would put it more suavely than that, though it is not, I think, by gentleness that you will get your rights; we are dogged ones at sticking to what we have got, and so will you be at our age.  But avoid calling us ugly names; we may be stubborn and we may be blunderers, but we love you more than aught else in the world, and once you have won your partnership we shall all be welcoming you.  I urge you not to use ugly names about anyone.  In the war it was not the fighting men who were distinguished for abuse; as has been well said, ‘Hell hath no fury like a non-combatant.’  Never ascribe to an opponent motives meaner than your own.  There may be students here to-day who have decided this session to go in for immortality, and would like to know of an easy way of accomplishing it.  That is a way, but not so easy as you think.  Go through life without ever ascribing to your opponents motives meaner than your own.  Nothing so lowers the moral currency; give it up, and be great.

Another sure way to fame is to know what you mean.  It is a solemn thought that almost no one—­if he is truly eminent—­knows what he means.  Look at the great ones of the earth, the politicians.  We do not discuss what they say, but what they may have meant when they said it.  In 1922 we are all wondering, and so are they, what they meant in 1914 and afterwards.  They are publishing books trying to find out; the men of action as well as the men of words.  There are exceptions.  It is not that our statesmen are ’sugared mouths with minds therefrae’; many of them are the best men we have got, upright and anxious, nothing cheaper than to miscall them.  The explanation seems just to be that it is so difficult to know what you mean, especially when you have become a swell.  No longer apparently can you deal in ‘russet