Extracts from Addresses 335
and cause for congratulation when the State of Texas, in this forward-
looking movement of education, has prepared for the greater blessings of
peace that will now prevail throughout the world.
Now I understand that the predominant thought which will prevail in
the new international policy is that of giving the other fellow a chance,
and I will not attempt to consume your time at any great length upon
this subject, so I will give you an opportunity to have this programme
completed, and to hear from others from whom you are less in the habit
of hearing. But let me say on this occasion and under these auspices,
that the efforts of my administration will be devoted to providing for
Texas the best and most complete of all the educational institutions
under State patronage in all the land, and to providing at the same time
for the best system of common schools of any State in the American
Union. I feel that when we shall have accomplished this and shall have
builded up the State institutions to that high standard, we shall have
made them fitting companions and fitting handmaidens to this great
institution.
Dr. Shipley: I want to thank the authorities, the governors of this
university for letting us come here, and I want to thank my old friend,
the President. I almost feel as if I had a little share in the Rice Insti-
tute, because when it was being planned he honored me by coming to stop
with me, and for hours and days we discussed the plans which were then
springing up in his fertile brain.
Perhaps I ought to explain that we are here at the request of your
government, the request of the Board of Defense, taken over by the
Board of Education, who have given us an extremely good, although
slightly hurried time. We owe them thanks, and especially we thank the
gentlemen who have seen us around.
The aim of our mission is to bring America and Great Britain to-
gether, in the hope that what has happened in war will happen in peace,
that the two nations will be always and everlastingly friends. We feel
that if that could be the case, there would be no more war. Perhaps
we—I, for instance, who live within the sound of the guns of Flanders—
appreciate a little more definitely than some of you over here do what
war has meant. A thing that makes me bitter is to go into the fields
around my city and see the well-fed, healthy German prisoners, with
never a guard, for they do not want to escape, working, tilling the land,
and then during the same hour go to our railroad depot and see a train-
load of the physical wrecks of humanity, strong, able men that were.
Three years, two years, a year, is enough, in the hands of the German
taskmaster, to reduce those men to such a state that they will be a