One thing America believes: only through education can a people rise to greatness. You, Sir, looking back through three-score years of rewarded effort, have lived to see your influence, which transformed the little College of Harvard into a great University, gradually transcend those ample limits and help to shape a nation's destiny. In that nation, your record shall stand beside the names of those who founded the Republic, made it secure, and led it forward toward new heights of happiness and truth. In a life which has far outrun the ancient limit of the Psalmist, you have not ceased to love justice and to point steadfastly toward wisdom. Where you have led, a nation follows. We greet you, then, speaking from the heart in words which through the generations have expressed the full measure of gratitude for service given without stint.

"How beautiful a thing is judgment for gray hairs and for elders to know counsel! How beautiful is the wisdom of old men, and thought and counsel to men that are in honour! Much experience is the crown of old men; and their glorying is the fear of the Lord."