Vanderbilt University

              ~ I
THE ROLE OF THE EXPERT III A DEIlOCRACT
Vanderbilt Univeraity
June 8, 1938
It is a great pleasure to I!I!I to oome here todlo/, end partioularly
to have the opportunity of Plo/ing tribute to two great ohanoollora ot Vmderbilt
University. 1 have for ~ years looked up to Chancellor Kirkland, one of
the great figures in Amerioan eduoation. 1 doubt who r any of us om assess
wi th aoo~oy the importanoe of the work whioh he did in his long oareer at
Vanderbilt. 1 wioh to add fI1II word of praiae and admiration and to express to
Mm fI1II affeotionate good wishea for a long earned period of reat and retir_nt.
It was with no little satisfaotion tbat I reoeived thl) newa that
you had seleoted a8 Chanoellor Kirkland's auoe.Bsor another old friend of mine,
a man wboae oareor I have followod for twenty-five years since the time when he
was a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford. There is, in fI1II opinion,
no training more valuable for service to Amorioan education than the opportunity
whioh a man gets in a Rhodes Sobolarship. Speoially beoause of the fact that
the very differences betweon, Engl10h education and our 01IXl make him think out
over again tundllllllmtal quostions. the snswor to which we aro all too much prone
to talro for granted . I know the splendid qualities of willdall and in8i~t end
intelligenoe which Chancellor Carmiohael brings to his work. and I expeot great
things f1'Ol:l his period of leaderohip in this University.
This is the time of year when academic degrees are being conferred
"with aU the rights and privileges pertaining thereto. " TheGo "rights and
privilege." are important and well desorved. but I ask your permission todlo/
to allow I!I!I to dwell not on the rifihts but rather on the duties whioh aocomplUliY
the privilege of higher eduoation. Two hUlllllnists as far apart 118 J.latthew
Arnold and O~eea y Gasset remind us that it is a oharacteristio of the superior
mind to feel the forGo of the motto "noblesse oblige" , to hold itself up to
standard., to enlist itself in the servioe of SOl'/llJ oaU6e whioh io wider than
individual welfare. It is on the other hand • . aocording to the.e montora.
ona of thG dangers of damooraoy that 1fu& ordinary llIt.n Mould inaiat upon the