In recognition of his representative position and public gifts, and of his services in promoting friendship and good feeling between the peoples of Great Britain and the United States. and also in appreciation of the heroic conduct of his country in joining Great Britain and her Allies in the great war now going on.
"One other thought occurs to me in this shattering of the world which goes on about us. We have had some sad surprises with regard to the value of sheer scholarship when it is divorced - as we have alas lamentably seen it divorced - from character. What is it but another addition to the destructive forces of civilisation? With that discouraging discovery what a pleasure it is to stand in this ancient Scottish university and to re-declare that great doctrine upon which you have ever stood, that the first element of real learning was character."