An Address to Young Men
By DAVID STARR JORDAN
Chancellor of Leland Stanford Junior University
1903
To Vernon Lyman Kellogg
So
live that
your afterself—
the man you ought
to be—may in his time
be possible and actual. Far
away in the twenties, the thirties
of the Twentieth Century, he is awaiting
his turn. His body, his brain, his soul are in
your boyish hands. He cannot help himself. What will
you leave for him? Will it be a brain unspoiled by lust or
dissipation, a mind trained to think and act, a nervous system
true as a dial in its response to the truth about you? Will you,
boy of the Twentieth Century, let him come as a man among men
in his time, or will you throw away his inheritance before
he has had the chance to touch it? Will you let him come,
taking your place, gaining through your experiences,
hallowed through your joys, building on them his
own, or will you fling his hope away,
decreeing, wanton-like, that the man
you might have been shall never
be?
The new century has come upon us with a rush of energy that no century hasshown before. Let us stand aside for a moment that we may see what kind ofa century it is to be, what is the work it has to do, and what manner ofmen it will demand to do it.
In most regards one century is like another. Just as men are men, so timesare times. In the Twentieth Century there will be the same joys, the samesorrows, the same marrying and giving in marriage, the same round of workand play, of wisdom and duty, of folly and distress which other centurieshave seen. Just as each individual man has the same organs, the samepassions, the same functions as all others, so it is with all thecenturies. But we know men not by their likenesses, which are many, but bydifferences in emphasis, by individual traits which are slight and subtle,but all-important in determining our likes and dislikes, our friendships,loves, and hates. So with the centuries; we remember those which are pastnot by the mass of common traits in history and development, but by the fewevents or thoughts unnoticed at the time, but which stand out like mountainpeaks raised "above oblivion's sea," when the times are all gathered in andthe century begins to blend with the "infinite azure of the past." Not warsand conquests mark a century. The hosts grow small in the vanishingperspective, "the captains and the kings depart," but the thoughts of men,their attitude toward their environment, their struggles towardduty,—these are the things which endure.
Compared with the centuries that are past, the Twentieth Century in itsbroad outlines will be like the rest. It will be selfish, generous,careless, devoted, fatuous, efficient. But three of its traits must standout above all others, each raised to a higher degree than any other centuryhas known. The Twentieth Century above all others will be strenuous,complex, and democratic. Strenuous the century must be, ofcourse. This we can all see, and we have to thank the young man of theTwentieth Century who gave us the watchword of "the strenuous life," andwho has raised the ap