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YOUR EXCELLENCIES,
I find it extremely difficult to express in adequate terms my gratitude for the great honour which the University has conferred upon me. I appreciate the honour all the
more because it has come from a British source--a centre of British learning at the very doors of China offering to the Chinese people the greatest gift-the best fruits of British culture at the disposal of the British nation. Through the University the British Empire is extending the hand of goodwill and friendship to a great and ancient nation.
I observe on the shield of the University two words or rather two phrases that shine forth like great lights, show- ing up the very basis of our human culture, as they involve, in fact, the guiding principles that must determine the great discussions to be held by the wisest men of the nations who are assembling to-day to consider the peace terms to be imposed upon the barbarous Germans. The Latin legend of the crest is a very apt translation of the Chinese phrases -Ke-wu and Ming-te-but I am afraid many students may not fully realise the true meaning of Sapientia et Virtus.
The word Sapientia has undergone changes in meaning in the course of time. It was in the middle ages rendered "wisdom". It represents the best results of Ke-wu or Science as we should translate the phrase in modern English. Then there is the other expression Ming-te which the late Dr. Legge had translated "illustrious virtue ". humble submission to such a venerable authority, I venture to think that "illustrious virtue is too learned and ponde- rous a phrase. The Latin Virtus, in the sense employed by the stoics, with emphasis on the vir, has no exact equiva- lent in modern English but it is the right meaning of te in Confucian literature. What do we mean, after all, by these words? They indicate simply the application of knowledge to the necessities of life, subject to moral restraints. In that Chinese phrase Ke-wu, we have the basis of modern
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