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MME. CHIANG WILTS IN WELLESLEY TALK
So Moved by Return to Alma Mater She Nearly Faints as She Faces Students
By The Associated Press.
Wellesley, Mass., March 7--Overcome by the emotion of her return after twenty-five years to her alma mater, Madame Chiang Kai-shek nearly collapsed as she began a speech to the Wellesley student body today.
As her second sentence went out over the radio, the First Lady of China swayed and clung desperately to the lectern, her face drained of color. Her nurse held smelling salts under her nose and Madame Chiang tried to resume speaking.
But once again she swayed and sagged, barely holding herself upright and gripping the lectern. This time, however, the smelling salts revived her and she went on to tell the undergraduates that they need not be prominent individuals to help build a saner world. The Wellesley honor graduate of 1917 told the girls to "beware of machine-made processes of thinking."
"When I was a student here the world was then weltering in rivers of blood," she said. "Today the river has swelled into oceans, for the advance of science makes this war more deadly, more expensive in its toll of lives and human misery than the previous great war."
Group Effort Recommended
With a long review of women who through the ages have "had a share in building the ever-ascending pyramid of civilization," the wife of the Chinese Generalissimo asserted that "whatever an individual can do is picayune compared with what a group can accomplish."
She declared that Wellesley's motto--non ministrari sed ministrare (not to be ministered unto but to minister)--had guided her in her work.
"First comes cooperaion, that common and much-used word which seems to convey so little and
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MME. CHIANG WILTS IN WELLESLEY TALK
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yet should mean so much," she said.
"Second stands the spirit of humility.
"Last but not least ranks probity in thought and in action. It is transcendent thinking and the translating of these thoughts into deeds worthy of the name of human progress which differentiates men from beasts. Always have we frowned on moral turpitude, yet intellectual and mental dissipation are no less culpable of disdain. The Tartuffes, and the mentally lackadaisical, have had more than their share in nurturing the evils of our day.
"With the riches of the ages within your grasp, with the wide field of specialized branches of knowledge to be had at your will, with the maturity of mind to be gained in your contacts with your professors and advisers, you should beware of machine-made processes of thinking," Mme Chiang counseled.
"Do not be afraid to strike out and explore the fertile realm of your own minds and let them lead you in your conclusions to what they will so long as you are true and honest to yourselves. Nor do I counsel you to concur to shallow and supercilious omniscence.
"This present world struggle is a battle of light against darkness, of justice and right dealing against selfishness and greed. Indehiscence and mawkish maunder will not equip us for our battle through life. Stern days are still ahead. Yet within these very portals is the cenote of learning. It is here where your strength could be reinforced."
For her appearance in Alumni Hall Mme. Chiang wore a velvet gown of Wellesley  blue and earrings of diamond and sapphire. The gown was the same one that she wore to receive the ranking diplomats, military and government leaders of Washington at a reception given by the Chinese Ambassador and Mme. Wei Taoming.
Mme. Chiang had pinned to her fur coat a corsage of brown orchids sent to her by Miss Caroline Hazard, former Wellesley president. The two women have the distinction of being the only living holders of degrees of Doctor of Laws from Wellesley.
Lieut. Comdr. Mildred H. McAfee, president of Wellesley on leave as director of the Waves, introduced Mme. Chiang to 1,500 persons in the auditorium and, after her speech, to 650 gathered in another room.
Afterward Mme. Chiang retired to her dormitory suite to rest and have lunch. (She does not eat before making a speech.) Later in the day she was initiated into Phi Beta Kappa, scholastic fraternity, and attended vespers at Tau Zeta Epsilon, the college society to which she belongs.
A reception in her honor was sheduled for tomorrow night in Symphon Hall in Boston.