The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1882-01-26
WHOLE NO. 1905.

: must be the powers of future years,
and the future Of each rests upon
popular education In each the same
fight is going forward. Popular, sec
ular education against sectarian. In
such a contest there can be but one
result as long as the dial hand Of
progress still points forward; the tri-
umph of education pure and simple, un-
trammeled by Middle Age creeds and
and churchly dogmas. but ever true to
the great principles of humanity, us
tice, progress. Free thought has
done much in breaking down the Bit
ter prejudices Of the past, and so far
its work is only just begun. Our
legislators and our preachers are alike
losing their power The great power
In American life to-day is the press,
and the only power that can control
the press is the school. and the intelli-
gence it disseminates.
American teachers often complain
that they are poorly paid and lily ap-
preciated, but so those who have done
earth's highest, holiest work have
always been. Turn to the ages gone,
the good old centuries of war, brutal
ity and crime, which are their grander
names, their Alcuins, their ,Gerberts,
their Erigeneas; or their Tancreds,
their Baldwins and their Richards,
the benefactors or the curses of their
ages. These boys and girls that now
fill our schools, may in coming years
give an impulse to the affairs of the
world they may never cease to feel.
Though you give but cup of cold
water to one of them, your reward is
sure. Ursula Gotta, feeding the
street singers, is as immortal as the
boy Luther, that she saved to the
ranks of scholarship. The worlds
work is not yet wholly DONE In that
class toiled with by day and mourned
over by night, there may be new
Luther or Wesley, Washington or
Grant, Kant or Min, Darwin or
Miller. Feed my lambs" was
Christ's last command. Feed my
lambs" is alike the duty of religion
and intelligent craftsmanship.
Do you ever think of the grandeur
of our future hopes, of the magnii-
cence Of our future possibilities; of
the uncounted millions that in COM
ing years are to fill our valleys and
crowd our hillsides with busy life, of
the teeming generations of the future?
We are living, we are moving in the
grandest age Of human history when
the world is making more progress ina
day than it once did in century. HUI
manity demands the help of all to
carry on the work so we'll begun.
Our age. while losing in reverence is
gaining in humanity. In all calcula-
tions for the future the most impor-
tant factor is popular education.
Only through this can we hope to
escape the fate of Greece and Rome,
only through this can we hope to
make our nationality enduring. Let
us aim to be secure in this, then
Not in vain will distance beacon
While the great world spins forever,
Down the singing groves of change"
Said Christ to his would-be follow
ers: He that putteth his hand to the
plow and looketh back is not fit for
the Kingdom of Heaven" No more
is the timid, halting, conservative, all
of whose ideas are borrowed from the
past, fit to take a place in the grand
advance Of human thought. The
watchword of the hour is, Forward"
Said Moses to Israel trembling on the
sea shore, go forward" Hating
conservatism might have well asked,
how? but as they went the waters di-
vided. So to us, though much of the
future looks dark and threatening
comes the word, "Go forward" Free
dom's fight is not yet wholly won.
Giant wrongs still stand up grim and
hoary with power, and reverential
with age. There is enough in the
very air of our times to nerve the
very weakest to action The spirit of
progress, of freedom, to-day is much
the same as when
.Itkne1t with Ziska's hunted flock,
And And waaG asef4 Win any e the eel
1t has not much changed since
THE moor of Marston felt its tread,
Rse m Toa ae %aIea led
but now the world has clasped it to
it's breast and made of it both shield
and banner for its future years. Its
tread is no longer by stake and scaf-
fold but humanity is with it in its
triumphal march. Much is yet to be
done before the cause of human rights
is fully won, and each one who adds
TO the worlds stock of intelligence is
helping. We can only guess the fate
IF future years by the past. Of one
hing at least we are sure,
''God is just and every wrong shall de-
In the spirit of this utilitarian age,
N the career of material progress,
breaking down apathies and binding
nations IN the bonds OF peace,
In the set thoughts i that Is shake haS mankind"
read the doom of wrong the triumph
If the right, the gradual amelioratlon
If human society, the death of tyr
any and superstition, the spread of
etters, until intelligence shall become
1t is only the evil of the
.lder years that is dead or dying, the
good, the justice, the truth, the hu-
nanity of those years is living still.
Y ainly then conservatism sits among
is tombs and mOurns over the skele-
ons of the dying past. They only
lug its evil to their hearts and spurn
is good away. Mourn no longer the
lying past, live in the active pushing
PRESENT,
AS idly as in the old time,
so IN his time. thy son grown gray
Shall sigh for thine.
Yet not the less for them or thou
To that great anthem calm and slow,
That God repeats
Take heart the waster builds again
A charmed life old goodness hath
- The tares may perish-but the grain
is not for death.