Morning journal and courier., 1889-09-09


 a straight and healthy growth. And that
 has brought rejoicing to their homes and joy
 to their hearts. And still the roots go down
 aud the trunk expands, and the boughs bear
 better and better fruit. And the people act
 not as though they had already attained,
 having a purpose in their hearts to go for
 ward, right forward. Education to the
 dwellers in this town is @ thing that lives
 and moves. It has, as one said of religion,
 no blind eye, no deaf ear, no dumb tongue,
 no withered hand, no lame foot. "And edu-
 cation," says Dr. James Walker, "does not
 consist in putting things into the mind, but,
 as the name implies, in bringing things out in the development of the power and hab-
 1t of sslf-sctivity, self reliance and self-gov- ernment; and to effect this object the facul- ties on which these traits depend must be stimulated, exercised and put to the stretch. 1" The inhabitants of Guilford seem to have dreamed this, and to have been rewarded by enrolling among their children many who attained to eminenoe and high distinction. And here may digress moment and ask Guilford) be to me the one place on all the earth that love most dearlyi" There first saw the light. There in long summer days followed old roads that wind through mead- ows and over hills. There I knew every lit- tie nook and bay where the tides come in. There listened to the morning and evening song of birds, and climbed trees that might in their nests. There gathered wild flowers in wood and dell. There I heard the solemn tolling of the bell when neighbor or friend had died, and more than once in the awful stiffness fancied that the Day of Judgment was near at hand. It all comes back to mo now and was part of my education. But returning to my theme. Of Madison it may be said, "She is the daughter of healthy mother" and shares with her in the elder has walked alone, though not unmindful of the lessons that she had already learned. These have been to her 'like apples of gold | in pictures of silver" When a part of the mother became child again, those who re- mained with the child still kept to their for- mer training. In their eyes the schoolmas- | ter was an imposing parsonage, and many a | timid boy felt the force of words to which Oliver Wendell Holmes has given such fit expression:
 Thick rows of wrinkles, prints of worrying cares. Uneasy lie the heads Of all shat rule.
 supreme he ei sits; before the awful frown "oo''
 That binds bis brows the boldest eye goes down: Not more submissive Israel heard and saw
 At Sinais foot the Giver of the Law"
 Among my early teachers in the then new town of Madison were Luman Whedon, Frederick Dowd and Thomas Dowd. And still later at Lees academy Samuel Robin son, Theodore A. Leete, William Wallace Wilcox, John R. Freeman and Richard D.. Rice. Will any other men ever seem to me l 60 great as did these men9 Never. Will any other presence ever awe me as did their presencef Mover. What now are the les- | sons? That was true saying, "Honor is purchased by the deeds we do." And 1t is | pleasant fact that the instructors of our youth have been among the best and wisest of mankind. Of our really great men, ! whether dead or living, nearly all were at some period in their lifetime teachers. And | never did their light shine more sweetly, or l more to the benefit of others, than while in that orbit. And if I may use in part Mill tonic words, "They were and are dear to
 God, and should be famous to all ages" Of | such not Q few have done their work and gone away. "Their little life is rounded with sleep" In quiet church-yards, among | the gentle hills, or on the plains "cool with towering trees," they rest from their labors, but their works do follow them. And "to live in hearts we leave behind is not to die. :" And from the days of Socrates until now there have been those to keep the memory of their teachers green, and to thank God for the gift of these to men. And today we give faithful living teachers warm place In our hearts. "We grapple them to the soul with hooks of steel" We assign to them a place of honor than which none can be high CT in all the earth.
 Gods prophets of the useful
 Those teachers are"
 And to borrow @ sentence from Isabella Mayo, "All the long course of their lives is marked by other lives Gifted up." And why may we not say of them as Dr. Butler
 said of strawberries: Doubtless God could have made better berry, but doubtless God never did. And SO if God could have made
 better class of men and women than those
 who have been the educators of our youth,
 doubtless he never did. These are they who
 in their
 Gentler moods teach our children to
 Find tongues in trees books in the running brooks There are they whose words melt into young and dooile minds, and inspire them to noble purpose and high endeavor.
 These are they who have found the lever
 and the fulcrum, and with this combination
 are moving the world. And not to hold
 such in high regard would be a mark of great
 ingratitude. A second lesson is, or should
 be, one of thankfulness for good books. Dr.
 Charming, writing on sslf-culture, says, "It
 is chiefly through books that we enjoy inter-
 course with superior minds. In the best books great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts and pour their souls into ours."
 Ana LuhL IS h ROOu DOOk, b6yB AIcOtL,
 which is opened with expectation and closed
 with profit. And in their reading the peO- pie of Guilford have e1smpli6ed the saying of Carlyle, If lime is precious, no book that will not improve by repeated readings deserves to be read at all." And also the saying of Bacon, "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested." Moreover they have and do believe in these apothegms, one of which declares that Knowledge is pow- er." And tine other that Ignorance is the curse of God" Hence your tree of knowl- edge planted so long ago Is very strong and very fruitful. Recently one with his own hand shook down Q million dollars from Q branch which he himself had grafted in. He had read the vail of the prophet, who said, "My people are destroyed for lack of see another people in like condition, and the eye pitied and the hand helped. "Knowledge," said Daniel Webster, 'is the great sun in the Armament; life and power
 are scattered with all its beams" Did the
 sun stand still on Gibeon, making the light
 of one day ss the light of twoi And did
 that great sun of which Webster speaks,
 when it came up to your meridian, stand
 still and then scatter with its beams @
 double portion of life and poweri 1 know it is not popular nowadays to believe in
 miracles, but you do not claim any such
 high help in those educational forces, which under God have done so much for you and yours. But you do both believe and claim that the fathers and mothers of this Connecticut town did run well, and that you, their children, do not propose to grow weary in the race. A blend light, 6 sweet light, 6 light warm and rich, and mellow, came ont of the sky that hung over the past, and the future am sure Is perfectly bright. The long line of educators who have already done such noble work is not yet at an end. The chain has not been broken nor do the links gather rust. The brightness brightens, the strength strengthens, the glory is more and more resplendent. know not what the future hath. No man can know, but I be- lieve with Emerson that we cannot overstate our debt to the past. And while good men walks of life, among famous mechanics. mer- chants, soldiers, sailors, manufacturers,
 bankers, lawyers, doctors, clergymen, states men, &c.,; still we have it in our hearts to say that none have done more than the teach CTS of our youth to keep strong and safe the foundations of our civil and religious liber- ty. Should monument be erected to their memory, and all worthy names inscribed thereon, broad acres would be needed tor its base, and it's highest summit would be the first to catch and the last to lose the golden rays that the orb of day shoots forward and would stand telling out to men lesson clear
 as the noon, sweet as the light, grand as the eternal hills of the everlasting God. And | now, O Guilford by the murmuring sea; by the waters that roll and sparkle in the gold s1.Ik q d. 1J E-- Il '