The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1882-01-26

canoe of the great movements of th
day. As little as the soldier in th
turmoil of battle can We value at it
real worth the busy life Of which W
form part. With Tennyson w
pray,
''Oh for a man with heart, head, hand
Like some of the simple great ones gone,
One still. Strong hand in a blatant land
Autocrat, aristocrat- democrat. what care 1.
One who can rule and dare not lfe.''
But while raising this prayer, as w
imagine in all sincerity, we forget
that those simple great ones were tn,
victims of the same jealousy; the sam,
remorseless hate by partisan opponent
as the great Of our own times are ac
customed to being prophets are no
without honor except among theil
own. people'.,, has passed into truisn
in all civilized lands. Equally true i;
it that the really great have no honor
from their own compeers. The Phar-
isees who built tombs for the prophets
their fathers had murdered and yet
walked in the way of those fathers by
prosecuting the prophets of their own
time were merely fair specimens of
universal humanity.
How few of the pioneers Of thought;
the radicals of the ages, have failed
to win the martyrs palm. Along
down the centuries. the path of human
progress, Of scientific thought, of reli-
gio1s development, of educational dis
enthrallment has been marked by the
blood of the scaffolds, the flames of
the stakes where the real lights of
the world in after times, the real
''demi-gods'' of fame have pour d out
their dying breaths, ever true till
death to the cause of advancing
thought-the cause of higher knowl-
edge. The succeeding age is always
ready to accept the teachings of pre-
ceding ones, and equally ready to per-
secute the teachers Of their own age.
It is amusing to have the declama-
tion in which people who 81 ould know
better. sometimes indulge about the
grand old Roman republic and the
stern virtues of Grecian patriots, while
they decry our own nation-our own
times. Could many such have lived
in the days Of Solon or Of the elder
Brntus they would have been looking
with the same longing eyes back to
the time when their fathers dressed in
skins and wandered wild over the pla-
teaus of Iran The cynics who decry
our age and point so fondly to the
past, fail to remember that it was not
through the crowded ways of London,
Paris or Washington, but through
those of Athens, two thousand years
ago, that the cynic Diogenes wander
ed with a lighted lamp in open day,
vainly looking, as he sid for an hon.
est man; himself no doubt the grandest
rascal there.
1t strikes something Of the tinsel
from the great cf the past to see them
as they were. To see Pitt and Sheri-
dan in some drinking orgie, to recog-
nize professional gambler in Burke,
a shameless taker and still more
shameless giver Of bribes in Walpole
American Bourbons who think states
died with Clay, Webster and
Calhoun may do well to remember
that Clay's life was one long series of
faction fights and personal quarrels,
that Webster often clouded his tower
ing intellect with wine, and that Cal
noun was once threatened with the
punishment due to traitor The bit
Ter relentless factions, in whose eyes
no regulations are sacred, are not
alone thing of this year of grace
1881. When Washington lay at Val
ey Forge, his character and motives
we're as abusively assailed as those of
my of the great men Of to-day are
used to being.
OF all the worlds statesmen and in
Eentors, none ever did a grander work
FOR the world than Gutenberg and
Faust, but it has been left for our CEN
Jury to fully develop the power of the
press as social and political educator.
Fhe teacher and the printer have been
The partnership that has carried our
century SO far in advance of preced-
ng ones, in intelligence and all the
elements of progress in
which advancing knowledge is the
highest factor. Our Legislators are
more intelligent and better men be-
cause, they have a more intelligent |
Now that the action
IF our representatives are scanned next |
lay in million homes, scattered from
st. Johns to the ella, they find them
selves amenable to power Of which
Greece and Rome, and even early
America knew practically nothing.
Conservatism at times raises the cry
that there could be more Legislative
if the constituency kept
4 less strict watch on the representa-
tives. irresponsible action is alike
dangerous whether based upon nation
al ignorance or recognized law. Com
mon schools are giving US an approach |
to universal education. and the press
is ably seconding the education of the
schools. In the growing power of
the schools, Of free education, | can
most surely trace the hope of Ameri-
can freedom. Only through universal |
popular education can we hope to es-
cape the Destiny of Greece and Rome
and carry our government on to the
coming centuries.
American life aims at the universal
diffusion Of intelligence among the
Education is made general,
and the ideas of justice, peace and hui
manity are to some extent inculcated.
Rome trained its citizens exclusively
for war, no faith was ever to be kept
with the non Roman world, all the
training of life was toward duplicity
and falsehood, rather than toward
truth and honor The government
rested on the will of an oligarchy,
largely sunk in the lowest ignorance
and debauchery. Popular education
was an undreamed of possibility of
future ages. labor was disoraceful and