Kuyper's Convocation Address

Buy a fish in the store or receive one as a present, marinated in the finest sauce—that too is a treat; but for a real sportsman nothing can compare with personally angling for a fish in a stream or canal.

Poets and painters who are artists by the grace of God are those who write verse because they can't stop themselves and who create paintings because it is their passion.

Small wonder, then, that a real student does not make any progress until the study itself gives him pleasure.


These excerpts are taken from a convocation address given by Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) at the Free University in Amsterdam in 1900. In this address, he aims to focus his students on the goal of genuine study. A copy of the address in its entirety can be found here; we'll be discussing it in our little Liberal Arts Reading Group this coming Friday.