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The sermon which Phillips Brooks preached in Appleton Chapel last Sunday is not a sermon that can be easily forgotten; the truth that it contained cannot be overlooked. Setting aside the strictly moral and religious sides of the question, which it is hardly our office to discuss, we believe that the mental and intellectual deserve note. It cannot be denied that there exists at Harvard, and probably at all colleges, a spirit of indifference for general excellence. Men come to college to study, and perhaps do study most faithfully, but if their one aim is to make themselves learned, then their courses at college are not thorough successes. Every man should seek both to bring profit to himself and to give it to others; the double motive is the only complete motive. Beyond doubt in this fact we find the strongest argument for the establishment of what we may call intellectual societies, societies devoted to study and mutual improvement. Such societies cast aside the element of selfishness, and recognize and advance the element of generosity, of intellectual democracy, and the men who faithfully support them are helping themselves, and are helping also to improve and elevate the intellectual life of this college. Only the movements by associations, by clubs and societies, can really make a higher atmosphere. A single man's movement, unless made in conjunction with other men, nine cases out of ten amounts to nothing. If Harvard is to be an intellectual centre, her supporters must work together.