Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1880-07-21

1
tion of the whole civilized world. For,
We gathered there in our city of brotherly low
I and as the nations gathered TO behold thesbe
concentration of the various evidences of n
tional industry and progress that had eve
been presented on the face of the earth, a pr,
sentation especially full and complete for on
, own nation, surely wonder th
largest and most profound possesse
the mind as we learned of the greatness of ou
own State and nation. How did it come t
: pass, when nations grow so slowly, when
takes SO long time for institutions to prov
themselves, and toughen their fbers and be
come atrsng, when it takes csntur
after century for q nation to becom
great, that at last there was one great nation
in single century. I cannot stop this morn
ing to attempt any answer to that question
which by way of introduction / ask but vii
say this, by way of the beginning of an an
swer, among many things that might be said
the answer in very large part to the question
| thus raise is, our ed Icatioual system.
| This work of education in this land begaI
very early, began at the very beginning, besar
before the beginning, began in the persons o
our fathers who came over in the Mayaower-
was bone of their bone, flesh of their flesh anG
| spirit of their spirit. They said they left Hol
land and came to this county for three rea
sons; / name but the first, which they regard
| ed the chief:
| DSCduSS tuST COulu uOt. III IueIr IeIuSe III
| Holland, give their children the education
| they had themselves received. That brought
| the pilgrims to Plymouth Rock, and that spirit
| made Plymouth rock, that hard old stone, the
| seed plat q am ready to violate the metaphor
for the sake of the idaa) of The republic.
know there were two ideas prevailing in
| this land concerning education, from the very
beginning representing to US New England
| and Virginia-the dominant portion and the
,I1.rY oyo of nd E,rlv IL
year ITO Gov. Berksley, of Virginia, being
called upon by the lords of the plantations to
make some statement concerning the colonies
| for their information, among other things
said: "We have here in this goodly colony of
Virginia no free schools and no printing
presses, and hope we shall have none for a
century to come for these things are the
parents of heresies and seditions and q multi
tude of evils
So Virginia. Forty-six years before that
time John Elliott, grand New England mis-
sionary to the Indians, in the prayer in which
he opened the legislature of Massachusetts,,
said, in 1916: Lord, for schools every
where among u.s. that our schools may
flourish; that every member of this
cure good school to be encouraged in the
town where he lives, that before we die we may
be so happy as to see a good school in every
plantation in the country" That was New
England; and that has been the spirit of the
dominant portion of this country until to-day.
And that made the nation.
In further illustration of that same spirit,
suffer me just to give you citation from one
of the earliest acts OF legislation in New En-
gland in the Con necticut colony. " To the end
that all learning may not be buried in the
graves of our forefathers Ordered, thai every
township, after the Lord has increased them to
fifty househ"lders, shall appoint one to teach
all the children to read and write, aad where
any town shall increase to one hundred fami-
lies, they shall set up a grammar school the
master thereof being able to instruct them so
far as that they may be fitted for university"
So did the genins of America lift up every
child from the earth, when it was born, and
propose to educate it In the shadow Of the
cross.
Now, the consequence of these two ideas of
education is apparent in the fact that II q not
very late census, there were in Virginia of illit-
crate white adults, those who conld neither
read nor write, one to every twelve of the pop
ulation ! In Connecticut one to five hundred
and sixty-eight. (Applause.)
But / am not here this morning to speak
chiefly of what is contemplated in this line
of remark, viz, common school education,
co mmon education of the masses of the peO-
pie, but rather of collegiate education, of the
higher education of the country, and yet l
have rightly introduced this other topic for the
moment, for logically and chronologically the
collegiate education comes first, not the COM
mon school
Some of the grand universities of Europe
st,od for half thousand years before there
were any public schools in the land where they
existed. Harvard college was started in this
country before the men of the May Flower
died. The universities made the common
schools possible by educating the teachers.
Speaking on the topic of collegiate education
which is so very broad it is of course essential
by reason of the limits of time prescribed for
these services that shall narrow the subject
very much; so as stand here l desire so speak
of collegiate education as foundation work, to
fasten your attention on the thought that edu-
cation in every grade of it, but especially in
this higher grade, is basal and fundamental in
character, in civilization. in everything dear to
the people. So that is my topic, collegiate edu-
cation, considered as the foundation work.
What mean will quickly appear.
It is necessary in all education, in every
grade of it, that the process shall proceed with
a distinct purpose of preparation for distant
and unknown duties. It will be too late to
lay the keel of the ark when the billows of
the duluge are roaring around US. The pre-
paration must be made beforehand. Nature
furnishes US with abundant analOgies of what
1 am talking about. See that tall tapering
mast which holds aloft the sail OF the goodly
storm the life of every man on board depends.
That tall mast was prepared by centurys
wrestle with Norwegian blasts TO do the duty
of the hour. Look at this solid globe on
which we raise our crops, and build our homes
and live our lives. For Innumerable geologi.
cal ages, running perhaps through
hundreds of millions of years, this solid
globe YVES being every minute prepared under
the eyes of the Almighty performer for the
residence OF msn. Such is the law that nature
teaches us.
When you come to look into human nature
you see it exempli fed perpetually. The human
body is under this law, and must by slow pro-
cess be made ready for its great achievements.
Many an athlete subjects himself for years to
8 hard regime and training simply TO make
himself magnificent brute, and to tt able In
one hour of supreme physical exertion to win
the prize in which he delights. So, many 8
soldier for months is busy with the drill and
discipline of camp. Many an officer is trained
up from sallow boy to gray haired old man in
order that his nerve and muscle and mind may
be prepared for that supreme hour in which
his courage may turn the hinges of nations 8
life on the field of battle. So. I say, the whole
business of education, even in this low for
mula, is slow, steady, basal preparation for far
off, unknown, unimaginable duties. That is
Just what education is.
We know its principles and must apply them.
Nothing is more certain about it than that 1t
must be in all parts of it, basal
Come to the education of the mind, and who
has not observed that the same law holds good.
Is not the very thought on which all judioions
courses of study are arranged the thought of