St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1890-07-10

ian ASSOCIATION 11Nlte lHeIH To TIC
sublime truths of religion and i'm
mortality The free school trains
every faculty and opens the door to
all knowledge The free public
library and art gallery open the wis
dom and beauty of the past, and
lead to the richest feasts for the
intellect and taste for beauty. The
free museum opens its doors to urge
a study of nature and all her won
drous ways. Pleasant homes, good
society, generous public benefactors
and well ordered government make
life safe and attractive. The waters
of a river, at its source, are easily
diverted so that they finally reach a
very different destination. Can we
not greatly rejoice at the direction in
which the mental and moral streams
of our youth are to be turned The
immense advantages of education
are open to them all. They stand,
as Carlyle has said in the midst of
boundless arsenal and magazine,
filled with all the weapons and
engines which mans skill has been
able to devise from the earliest time,
and work accordingly with
strength borrowed from all past
ages. How different is his state who
stands on the outside of that store
house" knowledge gives the mind
of man control over the forces of
nature and how much these things
contribute to happiness as well as
strength. They will not heal disease
but neither will ignorance. They
expand the mind, exalt the faculties,
refine the taste for pleasure, and
open new sources of intellectual
enjoyment. They enable the mind
to retire from the heat and friction
of every day life to the cool and
And while it is true, in one sense,
that all present knowledge dies with
its pOssessOr, and that in a genera
ton or two all that all men now liv
ing have gathered into their minds
will go down into the grave, and
that the coming generations must
each begin, as we began, with
vacant, ignorant, but receptive
minds, and must again learn all that
we have learned, yet what tools they
will have to work with What
treasure houses of all past wisdom
they will have to gather from; each
generation improves upon former
ones. Men are becoming better
fed, better clothed, better housed,
and have more leisure and refine
ment.
Nor should it be forgotten that
these privileges do not belong to the
rich alone. In earlier times, the rich
ID Il
ton, books, pictures, and means of
development. But the mind does
not belong alone to the great ones of
earth. And now, to the poor and
lowly are opened libraries, art gal
lerics, museums, schools, academies,
association rooms, richer collections
than the rich themselves can have in
their own houses, all the avenues of
approach to the boundless means Of
success and happiness. Meanwhile,
why may we not appreciate and
enjoy the privileges we have? The
South and West invite many of our
young men away. Are they in all
respects more fortunate than those
who remain? In Monday morning
paper published at Birmingham,
Alabama, that magic city" of the
South that has sprung, as from the
hand of the genii out of little
hamlet into city of $4,000 inhabi-
tants, l read last winter of seven
murderous ARRAYS that had
occurred since the preceding
Saturdays issue within a
circuit of ten miles of that city
Within that circuit, probably more
crimes of violence occur monthly
than yearly in all New England
Notwithstanding the wonderful re-
cent development of sections of the
South, still over allis the incubus of
large ignorant populate the want
of free schools and public education,
and the dense black cloud of the race
question, charged certainly with
violent storms if not with the very
lightning of destruction. In the new
portions of the West, crop failures,
low prices for products, extortionate
railroad rights, excessive mort
cages and high interest, deprecia ton
in real estate values, cyclones and
tornadoes, and the hardships and
thousands of hapless men and hope
less women mourn the day that led
them to leave happy homes in the
East. 1t is true that great fortunes
are not made or lost in a day or year
with us. But we have no labor
troubles, no race problem, little
crime, no commissions of nature We
have the means of acquiring COM
petence, well ordered society, beauti-
full scenery, loved acquaintance, and
the very best facilities for equip
ping our youth well for the race of
life. May we not well be cOntented,
and say, THE lines are fallen into
pleasant places?"
One other thing 1 wish to suggest
In these days we hear much of trusts
betrayed, of life insurance presidents
misappropriating the funds saved
for widows and orphans, of bank
cashiers that keep careful note of the
time that trains leave for Canada, of
executors and guardians that steal
and plumber from those whom they
were appointed to protect. l recol-
lect of one executor who had intrust
ed to him, by will, legacy to be APP
propriated, as the Will stated, ITO
such persons and charitable objects
as to my said executor may seem
most deserving" This executor de-
cided, after careful consideration,
that he knew of no charitable object
more deserving than himself and
therefore undertook to exercise the
discretion in his own behalf 1t is
pleasant and wholesome to look oc-
casionally upon a trust executed more
than faithfully. A quarter of a centu-
ry ago, one who loved st. .Johnsbury
and whom the people of this state
delighted to honor, dying, left in the