No act of President Lowell's term is as completely characteristic of the man as his final report to the Board of Over-seers. Superficially, the document is a terse apologia, a justification of the principles which have guided his policy throughout twenty-three years as Harvard's chief executive. But when he says that "Everything in a University is a means to a distant end," President Lowell is sounding the Keynote not only to his administration but less obviously to this, his final bequest to his successors. With the clear foresight and profound understanding that have distinguished him as a builder, he outlines, for the guidance of those who must carry on, the foundations upon which his work has rested and upon which theirs must rest, if it is to fulfill the ideal.

Seen in such a light, the modest note of success, assumes more significance than would be implicit in a simple justification. "The trends in the College," he remarks, "have been toward a less vocational objective, a recognition of the principle of self education, and a stimulation of more vivid intellectual interests... All the more notable changes that have been made...have been designed to promote the four trends, and especially the last... They are merely a means to an end, and others might have been quite as effective; but these are the ones we have tried, and it would seem not without avail."

But the counsel does not cease with the proof of success. There is no question that the President's policy has rained the educational standards of the average man. But the founder attempts to delude neither himself nor his successor. The ideal embraced move than the improvement of the average; for were it to stop there, were there no means to encourage the full development of exceptional ability, mediocrity would be in inevitable character and ultimate frustration. President Lowell reiterates his plan for the foundation of the Society of Fellows.

To these who have if within their power to elect Harvard's next President, the report constitutes a stirring demand that their choice be a men with a clear perspective of foundations and with the vision and ability to complete the structure. Even to his last gesture, the builder has builder well.