Four Lovers of Truth.

Manawatu Herald, 24 September 1904, Page 3

Four Lovers of Truth.

At the summer graduation cere" ' mony in Edinburgh University, the degree of L.L.D. was conferred, among others, on Mr John Morley and Sir W. Hely - Hutchinson, Governor af Pape Colony; Sir Ludovic Grant, in presenting Mr Morley, Said that in the great , republic of letters no living English j writer held a position of prouder pre-eminence than that which his sovereign achievements had secured for Mr John Morley. His literary activity might be dated from 18G7j when be became editor of the Tortnightly Review, and gathered under his banner a company of writers whose names were household words to-day. His published works formed a little library in themselves, while for brilliance and beauty of Style, constructive skill, critical acumen, and elevation of thought they_ were not surpassed by any writings in the language, and justified the assertion that he was the greatest living master of English prose. Mr Morley had found his favourite theme in the lives of those who had risen to fame in the sphere of practical statesmanship, or in that of State theory. In his life of Gladstone, the Metropolitan University of Scotland congratu* lated him on the creation of a masterpiece which would prove as imperishable, they believed, as the monuments created by the genius of Bowsell and Lockhart, Mr Morloy, at the luncheon to the hew honorary graduates, said he asked himself at times whether their University system tended entirely to promote the liberty of mind which was the marked distinction between the really-educated mao ami the self edu- j cated man. He had been assured by a friend that there were not more than four prominent men who were really lovers of truth. *' I mean,” he added, “ men who are free from the imprisonment of formula; I mean men who are tolerably free, tolerably detached from the affairs of party in Church and State, with width of apprehension, power of comprehension, which, after all, is the true aim of culture.”