Extracts from Addresses 343
But the worst is now over, and our boys from Maine to California, and
from Canada to the blue waters of the Gulf, together with your boys,
are marching with locked shields and in solid phalanxes from Paris to
Berlin, marching under the same colors, for the same glorious principles,
under the leadership of Haig and Foch and Pershing. We rejoice in
the glorious future that awaits England and America under flags en-
twined. God grant that those flags may never be flaunted in defiance
one of the other.
Sir Henry Miers: May I assure you on behalf of myself and my col-
leagues that we are all deeply moved by the very genial welcome which is
extended to us to-day by representatives of this vast State, representatives
of this great city, and representatives of your noble Rice Institute? I
could only wish that on an occasion so distinguished as the present, be-
fore an audience so interesting as the present, it had fallen to the lot of
some other than a mere tongue-tied Englishman to address you.
Our journey has been of a somewhat hysteric character. We have
been traveling for somewhat more than forty days, and I have made the
discovery that America consists almost entirely of universities and col-
leges, for little else have we seen during our stay here. We have been
transported from university to university and from college to college by
train or automobile, and we are really getting the impression that there
is nothing else to be seen in this country. Our forty or more days have,
as I counted up this morning, consisted to a large extent of a visit to
not less than forty institutions, and I am glad to say that the result of
our spreading out so widely has been that we have been able to visit, in
this comparatively short time, almost every type of American educational
institution. We have visited the great endowed universities. We have
visited the State universities. We have visited the colleges, both men’s
colleges and women’s colleges, and other institutions. And to-day we are
beginning our visit to what I gather is an institution of somewhat dif-
ferent type from all the others, your great Rice Institute.
I venture to say that whatever is done in this State in the cause of
education in the future, the Rice Institute will always remain a centre
of intellectual activity and a stimulus to the growth of educational de-
velopment which will continue to spur and to guide the people of this
State in their search after educational improvement. The war has
brought upon us an immense deal to think about. Since we came into
this country we have been brought face to face with the overwhelming
spectacle of America at war. Since we have sat about here we have
constantly been reminded of the fact that America entered this war with
a complete and full determination to carry it through to a successful