The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1875-07-08
THE INDIANA STATE SENTINEL. tn URsDAY JULY 8 1875


the times in which we live. A review
OF the address at this time would
occupy too much space, but in it the speaker
handles nlcuy questions which are vital in
their relations to free government. He as
serts that there is no department in which
the principle of honor is so much needed as
in politics, and also that there is none other
in which it is so much missed.
He deprecates the effect of the
prevailing idea that honor is ignored in polit-
icsl life, which effect is to repel from partici-
patton in active politics all such as prefer
being good themselves to doing good for the
country, and who have learned to believe
that the latter is incompatible with the
former. He enquiries whether true honor
can flourish in democratic institutions
and answers in the affirmative, claiming
however that true honor can not subsist
without morality also. This is a point
which some may dispute, but one of inn.
meDse practical Importance in selecting
public men. DIR. Woolsey argues with
great force and beauty that educated
men are TO be trusted, if ANYBODY.
aGd that if the United States are
not destined to premature decay, the
class OF educated men can be trusted
to carry the principle of honor to as high
standard as the world has ever known
There is here suggestion for the American
people. In the past when q choice to the
highest positions has been pending, the
question OF education has never been seri-
ously asked, and several presidents,
even in modern times, have not
been up to fair standard
of scholarship. 1t is about time
that the nation which has most to say about |
the education OF the people, should look for
learning also in those who stand at the head of |
its political institutions. The address admits /
visible decline in the principles of honor in
this country and points out the best modes
Of cure for the evil of corruption and light es-
Inmates of honor. In the following ELOQUENT
passage he criticises and instructs
at the same time when he says:
That the care of political evils must come.
not from any measures or influences affecting
large masses at once, but from sentiments thai
grow up in individual minds. Honor. indepepd-
snce cou, age, sensibility OF conscience, admira-
personal feelings that belong to the man and
make him center of power. But our political
Is all o. another kind. We move in
masses, we obey orders whom TO vote for we ex-
ercise our passive natures as though we were
Mohammedans in politics; and then we praise
he modern system of state order because il
caches us that the state is made for the indi-
gidual, not the individual for the state.
But what is the freest state worth
1t only provides for our per
onal liberties of various kinds while by its
Institutions it neglects or belittles our charac-
er? Ne condemn the feudal times and Justly
because II broke up nations into fragments and
vas built on serldom; but oh, for more of that ,
pirit that glowed in the breadth of those Chris
ian knights, loyal, courageous and faithful! We
magnify the power of concentrated action, as
We have right to do, but are we not apt to for
et that an honest conviction, impulse from
within, even II man has to work alone all his
life, is nobler thing than to be one of million
Who follow toe impulses of another? We.boast
Il the intellectual power and triumphs over ma
ure of our own age, but is 1t not in danger OF
morally little?