THE NEXT TASK OF THE LAW SCHOOL

When, last December, I first saw these beautiful buildings, I could only exclaim: "It is a dream--a wonderful dream come true!" There was nothing original about this exclamation. You have all said or thought the same thing every time you have approached this quadrangle. In my mouth this trite but spontaneous utterance was but part of the res gestae of being conducted through the group by Dean Bates, the proud and intimate spirit of this architectural magnificence. And now, when I am privileged to return and to share in the dedication to the high service of man of this miracle of the builder's art, it still seems to me a dream-realized materially for the moment in stone and steel and paneled oak, but even more a symbol and a promise of a fuller realization yet to come in the lives of men.

Happy he who dreams such dreams as did the giver of these buildings; happy he who is spared to see his vision enshrined in the enduring stone that today we dedicate; but happiest of all he who knows, as Mr. Cook may do, that from his dream "the best is yet to come". And it is to that dream yet unfulfilled, to that best that yet may come, that I would devote the part allotted to me in these exercises.