It is something at a time when many ties which have been close are severed to know that the oldest and the strongest bonds remain. The messages received yesterday by President Lowell from the heads of an old English and an historic French university remind us at this hour of the debt we owe to other peoples, and to older civilizations.

We have entered into the great world-war. Behind must now lie that life of cultural progress which seemed to us only a few months ago our highest goal. It is to be expected that many men will be sent across the seas to fight with the allied nations upon the fields of France. No one should narrowly feel that he is fighting the battles of an alien people.

America has her own individual civilization in the making. Yet the foundations of that civilization are laid deep in France and England. The debt we owe them may not be lightly cast aside. It is for their kind of civilization that the Allies are fighting. It is for our civilization.

The two messages serve to remind us of our faith. The truth of our democracy has been challenged. We go to fight for the preservation of that liberty, equality and fraternity which is the basis of our national creed, and for that broad, un-grasping English tolerance on which our liberties rest.