On next Saturday the University will be honored by the presence as its guests of Marshal Joffre and the French Commission. France signally paid a tribute to the great regard in which it holds America when it sent Marshal Joffre here as an ambassador to consult concerning the common warfare against the single enemy. That one act would have served as strong proof to us of our spiritual relation with the great republic of Europe, whose liberties we have long come to regard as unalterably bound to our own.

The Commission has voluntarily gone further than formality and friendship would demand, and in visiting representative cities of the country it has introduced the people in person to France. That act of cordiality will not be valueless. An awakened trust in that brave republican nation which now is fighting for its very life against the enemies of all free governments has arisen in America. We remember, as we might have in idleness forgotten, the help rendered by the sword of Lafayette in our own hour of need.

Marshal Joffre will be honored at Harvard as a man who has done great things. His fame is not the fame born of conquest nor ambition. La Patrie called him when her life seemed failing before that first terrible iron rush of the picked troops of Germany. And Joffre beat those troops back from before the very gates of Paris. It takes bravery of a finer kind than that demanded even of the sub-officer who leads a charge to vision victory when that cause for which one fights seems foredoomed to defeat. It takes bravery and determination against overwhelming odds.

As young men who some day trust they will do something this careless world will not forget, Harvard men will be stirred to see this man who has saved a nation. There will be few enough in life to attain to greatness. Joffre has attained it in fame while republics yet live on the earth.