The River Falls journal. (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1857-1861, 1858-03-31
NATIONAL CHARACTER
= 9s8w "A LECiT URE
on THE INFLUENCE OF JONATHAN EDWARDS
AND BENJAMIN FRANKLIN UPON AMERI-
CAN MIND AND INSTITUTIONS,
- !. N sfi sFsrrf 5.F ttafas' sassg I'll
Delivered at River Falls, March 25th, 1858,
BY GEORGE d. RAND. f

CAN MIND AND INSTITUTIONS,
Delivered at River Fails, March 25th, 1858,
BY GEORGE d. RAND.
Nationalcharacter is the product of two
great forces tho education of circum-
stances, and the influence of the life and
teachings of great men. In the history
of nationalities, it is curious to trace these
two causes at work in the production Of
the peculiar and characteristic traits of a
people, and to understand aghy a people
has such or such development, as well
as to know that such development exists.
Under Providence, the civilization of the
world to-day, is but the cumulative result
of these two forces. Each generation
profits by the achievements of the prece-
ding, SO that men, unlike beavers, were
not just as intelligent in the days of Will
liam the Cenqueror, as now, but every
son is supposed to know, and it is his own
fault if he does not know, moro than his
father did. This is, in fact, the so-called
progress of the age, and is nothing more
than the ability to take advantage of the
labors and studies of our ancestors. We
shall therefore find it profitable as well as
curious, in our studies of history, to trace
the growth of those ideas and individual
tiles which render a nation distinct from
every other. The history ofancient Greece,
for instance, will show us a people distin-
guished above all others, both before and
since, for love of the beautiful in art
Greece was a nation of artists, and the
aesthetic faculty was SO highly developed
in almost every person, that none but the
msst faultless examples met with the APP
probation Of the people. Hence the
splendid results achieved in statuary, in
painting, in architecture, in poetry, in or
atory, and indeed in every department of
the Fine Arts. They have furnished
models for the world ever since, and in
their kind nothing has ever surpassed the
fruits of their taste and SKILL Our stu
dents still pore over the treasures of Gre
clan poetry and rhetoric; our painters
and sculptors make hardly a beginning,
until they have first drank in the exquis-
tie beauty struck from the classic marble
by the hand of old Praxitiles; and our
architects will never cease to admire the
faultless proportions, the classic grace and
symmetry of their splendid temples. If
we look for the causes of the wonder
full development they reached in these re-
spccts, we shall find it, in accordance with
the remark before made, partly in the as
poets which mature assumed and impress
cd upon them generation after generation;
and partly instho fabulous or rather prov
idential appearance in their early history
of poets, orators, historians, artists, whose
influence reached, not only down to the
extinguishment of Grecian liberty, but are
living forces throughout Christendom to
this day. .-s ee 4
But without particularizing farther we
may say that, the aesthetic element of
culture was the legacy of Greece to the
world. 1t is for this that her history is
read for this that her poems, her dramas,
her orations, the treatises of her Socrates,
her Plato, her Xenophon, are studied and
by reason of this that her achievements in
whatever department, have attained q
classic fame and are stored treasure
house for the nations.
The legacy Rome bequeathed the world
was entirely different. Not until long af-
ter she had drawn largely from Greece,
could she show much of grace, or did she
evince much love for what was beautiful
in form or sentiment. In war she was
supreme; in legislation she was a more
perfect state than had ever existed !; in sub
DUNG the forces of nature to her own use,
terrifying the city, making roads and az
ueducts, and in agriculture, she was great
ly in advance Of any preceding or cotem-
porary nation. In short, the two domi-
nant ideas developed by the Roman peo-
ple,were the dreadful sovereignty Of Law,
aud devotion to Material Progress
These were the two central ideas worked
out in the long centuries during which
Rome was strengthening herself for the
mastery of the world. But when hel
mission was fully accomplished, a wave
of Teutonic darkness rolled down upor
the Imperial City, and the Barbarian
| Goth stabbed his war horse in the palace
of the Caesars.
Then the Christian element began tt
battle its way into light and acknowledg
ment; and joining with the sentiment o
chivalry, which had grown into fantastic
proportions during the long nigh. of ths