Wichita eagle., 1886-10-10

countless trampS, as thick ana peStlIerOus
as the frogs of Egypt? What mean the la
Dor troubles, strikes, lockouts and boycotts?
What mean the red flags, .symbolizing fire
and blood, except that anarchists who Haunt
them in the face of the law prefer death by
violence to starvation in hovel? But this
must be an abnormal state of things, tenn
porary state of things, for God and nature
are not at strife Certainly the world is not
out of work and never can be. The gen
eral market can never be glutted because
human desires can never be satlshed
Our wants increase in number and
intensity faster than the power to
crafty them. The savage wants but lit.
tie here below, nor wants that little long,
while the products and services OF the
whole world can not meet the wants OF one
millionaire. What, then, is the remedy!
ONLY this, that all the armies of labor shall
move up the line, shall rise to higher planes
of work. Fewer men for brute toll ON
the brute earth, fewer providing for man
physical necessities; more for science, more
for social progress, more for moral culture,
more for the spiritual nature; and hence
more in the schools, both as teachers ana
students. Furthermore, the safety and the
glory of our nation require that we snail
press the work of education to its utmost
efficiency. A republic is broad-based on
the intelligence and morality OF its people.
The safety of our country requires that the
balance of power shall never fall into the
hands of the illiterate and vicious; requires
that few foreigners hostile to our instltu-
tons, the Infamous whisky league, or the
hoodlums of our great cities, shall never be
able to decide an election Our safety re
uuires not only that the majority shall be
intelligent and patriotic, bat that the vena
and the vicious shall be very few
The condition of some of our city gov
ernments. the recent election frauds, and
political corruption in high places, solemnly
warn the American people that every
christian man, every christian home, every
christian church, and every christian schoo
exert to the utmost its saving power.
Guizot has shown, in his history OF civil
zation, that 1.-The complete sway of simple
element in nations civilization may give
an extraordinary impulse, produce raplc
and brilliant development, but that it mus
bring on afterward rapid decline and fina
sterility." Ancient Egypt depended OF
her material greatness. Roman military
power, and both long since disappeared
from the list of nations. Spain has one
clement, that of authority in church ano
state: Russia one, monarchial power; Soutl
America one, ultra democracy; the United
States one, that of trade, merchandise
everything subject to business, health, wife
children, home, politics and religion
time and eternity. But nation cannot
poise long on one leg though made of solit
gold. We must intensity other ele
ments of power and permanence-
art. science, religion, education
Not only the permanence but the grandeur
of a nation depends upon the character Of
its people. AS among the nationalities o.
Asia, physical grandeur and resources may
only serve to emphasize the degradation OF
man. Englishmen are the glory OF Eng
land, and Americans, not merchandise
must be the glory of America.
''What constitutes a state?
Not high-raised battlements or labored
mound,
Thick wall or mOated gate:
Not cities proud with spires and turretS
crowned:
Not bays and broad armed ports;
No: men, high-minded men,
Who know their right, and knowing dare
maintain;
And crush the tyrant while they rend the
chain
These constitute q state"
Still further, it is religious truth which
prompts and energies all educational work
religious truth concerning man-his i'm
mortality his capability of eternal progress,
his value in the sight of heaven. Let these
truths be once abolished among men, lei
man fall to level with the brute, let
him rot forever in the grave, let him be
come as worthless as the worm which feeds
upon his decaying body, and who would
trouble himself with church, OF state, or
school? Let us eat and drink, for tOmor-
row we die" would be the universal senti-
ment. On the other hand, in the light of
religious truth, we see all nature and prov
idence, all questions, all industries and all
progress deriving their importance from
their relation to man. Not governments,
but the people; not the machine, but the
man who stands by it.; not capital, but the
great army of laborers; not crime, but the
criminals; not the means, but the end; not
the scaffolding, but the house! What can
we do for man? this is the question. The
answer comes from the Holy volume comes
from every christian heart: "The heathen
must he enlightened; the masses must be
lifted up; the nations must be christian
lied" But education, in its nOblest sense,
of these purposes.
"Were half the power that fills the world
with terror,
Were half the wealth bestowed on camps
and courts
Given to redeem the human mind from
error,
There were no need of arsenals and forts "
The special reasons for this educational
venture are such as pertain to this city and
to the Christian brotherhood, state and
national
First, let me say, it is our privilege and
our duty to take part, and a prominen,
part. If we can. in the education of the
people. We cannot shirk this responsible
Il, and. thank God, we have no desire to
DO So
Second. there is room.for this new insti
tuition. however large it may become, and
even if there was no room, the survival OF
the fitest" is law which applies to colleges
as well as to other things. Yours is 6
magnificent state: large, fertile, and never
cursed with the blight of slavery. The
population is increasing with unexampled
rapidity. You are determined to build
school houses, not saloons. to spend money
to make good citizens and not to punisl
criminals. You must begin now to pre-
pare for the next generation. In the neal
future there will be ten college students
where there is but one now. When col
leges shall be built for all the people and
not for the sons of the wealthy
only; when they shall no long
er be chained to the dead past
but shall have become part Of the living
present, and when all professional life and
state service shall require a university train