The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1880-08-05
Address of Welcome.

| DELIVERED BY HON. IRVINE DUNCAN, TO THE
JACKSON COUNTY LITERARY ASSEMBLY, wEDNEs-
DAT, JULY 2STH $780,
1t must be gratifying to the friends of music and
letters to large audience of apprecatve peo-
pie drawn together by the love of things that at
make us better and happier.
| Human assemblies among the best of influences,
in education, in religion and in politics. for man is
social being 1t is not good for him to be alone.
solitary creature with but his feelings and de-
sires to consult, would become barbarous ami
NAL Human companionship brings out all the best
and kindest feelings, and civilization itself rests on
organized society," and all liberty depends upon the
| freedom of men to assemble and discuss. And that
right is deemed vital to liberty that it has been
sacredy guarded in the constitutions of all free gov
ernments.
Centuries ago, the days the old Druids, the
cient Welsh breathed the spirit of liberty at their
Gorsedd where the courage oftheir ancestors
sung by minstres; where the magic OF music and the
spell of eloquence shed ustre the gallant deeds
of noble men. And later, and about eight hundred
years ago. the first assembly held, called Eistedd
fod, which means Assembly, or Session. and
which has come down to us, that we to-day but
follow in the footsteps of the ancient Brton and still
more ancient Greek, when we hold this little Ameri
can Olympic Eisteddfod.
In all ages and among all men, honor has been given
to success, physical, intellectual, moral.
1t has delighted men always, to honor the athlete
the man of strong muscle; and Graco Roman wrest-
while the crowds that throng to see walking-m -match
could have gotten inside the Old Circus Maximus
and that great engine of modern morals and civiiZ
ton, the Press gives to its eager readers all the
bloodiest details of the most brutal prize fights. And
while it feels toward the physical the world has
always held in higher esteem, the intellectual giants
Shakespeare is immortal even in this world, and as
listen to-day the words he put in the mouth of
the melancholy Dane cannot but feel that although
he is dreaming in that sleep of death he yet talks
to thousands more than when he suffering 1.-THE
sings and arrows of outrageous fortune in little
London theatre. And hundreds like him live. Each
of us is acquainted to friendship with dead
| than living men
But more than all does the world honor the moral
athletes those who love their fellows themselves,
who have shown that to die for mankind is nobler
than to live for themselves. So from the heroic self
| devotion of ThermopylR,up to the unapprOachable
sefsacrifce of Calvary the hearts of bow down.
From the earliest times there have been assemblies
where prizes were given for physical prowess and
| mental culture. The Olympic, the Pythian, the Ne
mean and the Isthmian games, the Gorsedd and the
| Eisteddfod have been among these.
Poetry and oratory and music, as well as racing and
wrestling and boxing part of the exercises. AT
| the Olympic Games, Herodotus and Thucydides read
their histories Painters and scuptors their
specimens to Olympia and poets orators and histOri
recied portions of their works. in these national
| assemblies; and awarded at the Olympic
| Games, deemed the highest of mortal honors.
But the greatest prize Is not the the re-
ward that follows the adjudication 1t is the training
that goes before the effort and the development that
results.
| The preparation and the effort, make you stronger
Every difficulty you conquer gives you strength and
often think of the truth wrapped up in the old Tar
tar superstition, that the strength vaor of the
enemy he slew passed into himself AS Byron put it