It will inspire self-respect, firm
ambitions, and general dignity and nobleness of nature. Men will be
drawn together by the sympathy of aspiration, rather than by mere
congeniality of habit, and their daily association will have an
educational influence of the most lasting kind. It is this association
which often leaves its mark on men who have failed to make right use
of the opportunities for specific instruction which surround them. A
college education is complete, so far as any provisional education is
complete, only when the student receives the strong impress of both
teachers and associates; when instruction is competent and vital, and
undergraduate life is wholesome, generous, and aspiring.
It is a significant fact that when a group of men develop creative
gifts in later life it will generally be found that their
undergraduate life together discovered strong sympathetic aspirations
which bound them together and gave their intercourse a very
stimulating quality. The action and reaction upon each other of a
group of young men of generous aims are peculiarly delicate and
influential, affecting the very sources of individual strength and
impulse.
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