Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1889-02-21


spread the influence Of our alma mater TO the
4 ENDS OF the earth. That influence, il is true
mas oeen quietly exerted and quietly dissemi-
mated. The alumni Of Georgetown college
have not been as loud in the praises Of their
| alma mater As they would have been justified
| TO be, and she has been satisfed-perhAps too
well satished-to be known by her works rather
than her professions.
Daring the century Of our alma matters ex-
| lstence she has seen empires rise and fall. She
saw the savage feudalism of Europe go down
| In blood before the still more savage ven
geance Of the French revolution. She saw the
Corsican conqueror throw the lurid light of
ms meteoric career across the field Of history.
She listened intently to the distant sounds of
triumph that went up from the field of old
Piataea TO soothe the dying hour Of Marco Boz
zaris. The south winds brought to her ex-
pectant ears the news Of the victories of Hi
daigo and Bolivar. She responded with the
stirring strains of the Marseillaise to the an
| nouncement of the Republic of Lamartine and
Cavaignac. She has seen our own thirteen feeble
states become the mightiest of empires. She
has seen yonder capitol rise to crown a hill
more regal than that wherein the Roman
| raised the seat of ancient sovereignty. For a
| time her brow was clouded, tine grief was in
her halls, while fraternal strife scattered her
sons and desolated the land. But she has seen
| the new Union grow up from the strife, and
| she reioices that we are once more
UNITED AND PROSPEROUS PEOPLE.
During this century of her existence she has
witnessed the most wonderful progress in all
the conditions OF society. During this century
| the steamboat the railroad, the telegraph, and
| the telephone have been invented: the conti-
| nent has been spanned; the mountains have
been pierced; the ocean has been bridged
| Morses vocal wire has come to flash the deeds
! and the thoughts Of men from land to land
| under the deep sea, through mountain and for
| est, from city to city, through all the wide
world. with the speed of the lightning. The
1 m koa L.
as well as TO chronicle its chameleon phases
Gigantic enterprises have been achieved BY
| combination which individual effort could
| never have realized. Communities and ma
tlons have been brought into closer relations.
| The history of the universities of Salerno,
Bologna, of Paris, were sketched. and the infiu-
| ence which they, as well others have exer-
| eIsed upon all ages. was graphically set forth.
The orator then spoke of the materialistic
| tendency OF the present age, and said
1t has long since been recognized by all true
statesmen, and by all thinking men, that the
| welfare. and even the very existence of a
| republic, depends on the combined virtue and
intelligence OF its citizens; and that, to the
extent that either intelligence or virtue is want
ing, the republic is in danger The absence of
either one will beget an aristocracy either of
force or of fraud, an aristocracy OF the sword or
/ an aristocracy Of wealth. The absence of both
| inevitably leads to Casarism and monarchy.
| 1t Is unquestionably true that il republics
| would perpetuate themselves they must pro-
| mote the virtue and foster the education of
! their citlzens. Are we promoting the virtue Of
| our people when we condone the crimes of
| bribery and corruption; when we make the
| ofhcers OF government the spoil of successful
craftsmanship; when we abandon the manage
/ ment OF our public offices to the ruffians and
the outlaws of society; when we seek to nation
| allze the Infamous scandal of the divorce laws;
| when we
SMILE AT SUCCESSFUL POLITICAL rR1cKERY.
1 nv thn,ax h
OF friendly power should be its victim-when
we permit our municipalities to be governed
| by the criminal classes and conducted on the
| principles of Robin Hood and Robert Macaire?
Are we promoting the intelligence of our peo-
| pie when we appeal to their passions and pre-
JUDGES instead of their judgments, to the
lurld insanity of sectional hatred, or the more
dangerous prejudice of foreign nationality
| when we add to the mass of imperfectly edu-
Gated immigrants from other lands whom we
strive to asslmilate, denser mass of disorgan-
| lzed Ignorance, which it is impossible to as
| similate-when the beautiful theory OF uni
versal suffrage is used to degrade the powers
OF government into the hands of the worst
elements of society-when the honored prin-
ciples of the rule of the majority, from which
| should be evolved the greatest good of the
greatest number. becomes merely cloak for
that worst OF tyrannies, the tyranny of the mob?
There is very prevalent political philosophy
that all these evils will right themselves in
course of time. But evil does not generate
| good; excess begets excess; and as sure as the
| sun shines In heaven, In spite of the wonder
| full elasticity of our composite race political
corruption must eventuate in national degrade
| ton, civil decay and Casarism. For the want
Of education, we fail to see that we are repeat
ing humanity's sad story, and that the causes
that overthrow the republics of Israel and of
Athens and OF Rome, and the republics Of Italy
and of the Netherlands, are precisely the same
causes that are to-day sapping the foundations
OF our own free institutions. Truly, we
need the higher education here, the edu-
| cation not alone of the intellect, but equally
Of the heart, to enable US to see and appreci-
| ate the danger and to guard against It be-
fore 1t is too late. We need the education
both of the intellect and the heart. for the
former. without the latter, may make us ac-
complished criminals; the latter, without the
| former, is likely to produce only amiable idiots
The combination of both is needed to make
THE USEFUL CITIZEN AND THE PERFECT MAN.
To that illustrious philosopher and states
man, Francis Lord Bacon, is attributed the
somewhat trite aphorism that knowledge is
power" 1t is Of no consequence that he did
not say tat least in SO many words.
knowledge is power and knowledge is the
result of education. In education all thought
| full men now see the only remedy for the evils
of our time, and the only solution for the many
problems that perplex us.
But even those who laud il most do not tell
us how education is to solve these problems
how education is to bridge the widening chasm
between capital and labor, or to reconcile the
| growing conflict between cooperative combi-
| nation and individual freedom. or to fuse two
radically antagonistic races into one homo
| geneous people. Intelligence is not itself q
| remedy. nor does it even Immediately supply
| the remedy. We know our difficulties now as
| well as they can be known in the future, and
| the knowledge does not supply us with the
means for their solution. Neither is it the in
| telligent who have always been the most virtu-
| Gus; and ignorance has not always been the
worst enemy of our race. The intelligence
| that will crowd the public places of your
| national capital with brazen statues Of men on
horseback, and leave the statesmen and the
philanthrophists and the scholars of the coun-
| try aforementioned and unhonored is O greatly
more dangerous thing than the untutored sim
| plicity of the backwoodsman, or even the be-
| nighted ignorance OF a duly qualified juryman.
| THE WORLDS WORST AND MOST DANGEROUS MEN
are the Caesars, the Robespierres and the Bona
partes-the men of intelligence and education
without honor and virtue-the men, who, by
that combination of gift and deficiency, are en-
| abled most lavishly to do on earth the work of
| hell, and bring untold misery on their fellow
| men. The bloodiest rufianism of the French
! revolution emanated from men of education
and women Of supposed refnement-from the
| philosophers, so-called, who had learnt their
| philosophy in the school of Rousseau and Vol
taire, with whom honor was a jest and virtue a
fable. The best educated sovereign that has
ever occupied the throne Of England from the