Fairhaven herald. [volume] (Fairhaven, Wash.) 1890-????, 1892-12-04
PLAN OF THE UNIVERSITY
The Great Project and its Benefits
Outlined By PreSt. Laidlaw
THE FIRST WORK TO BE DONE
Best University Building On the Globe
Promised-The Institution to
Be Co-educational
THE FIRST WORK TO BE DONE

Rev. Walter Laidlaw returned yes
terday from Seattle and Tacoma where
he has been spending several days Wis
iting the leading educational institu-
tions and doing important work in
connection with the proposed Univer-
sity of Eairhaven, Of which he is presi-
dent. The HERALD is indebted to
him for the following valuable contri-
button on the university question,
written by special request to give the
public a general idea of the plan and
objects of the great institution, as it
will be if its projectors receive from the
citizens of the Bay cities the encour-
agement and material assistance essen
tial to the success of such noble project.
President Laidlaw's article will well
repay a careful perusal and it is to be
no hoped that it will bear good fruit
in stimulating liberal contributions to
the great cause:
Excessive devotion to the material
is the evil of our epoch; hence certain
sluggishness. The great problem is to
restore to the human mind something
of the ideal. Whence shall we draw
the ideal? Wherever it is to be found.
The poets, the philosophers, the think
ers are its urns.n
These words were written in and Ofan
old community. True there, they are
likely to be true in "A new community
where labor, honest, earnest, for the
veal which peTisheth, is as noble as
necessary. Shall they be true of Fair
haven? The answer depends upon the
city's care for all the idealizing agen-
cies-schOols, churches, charities, and
above all, the university. Let that be
organized and endowed and equipped
and conducted so a., to continue the
quotation, "to throw Aeschy, throw
Isaiah, throw Dante, throw Shakes
peare into the deep soul of the human
, race and there will be a spirit in the
city's body. Without an appreciation
of such idealiZing agencies the city's
commerce may expand till Wall street
as money centre, gives place to Har-
ris street, and yet the city will feel
itself faiuTe-like the steam man
/ that can walk, run, lift, shout, dc
everything but be man. Without
the presence of such agencies the city
will always feel dependent and be inn
itative-roddie repeating Bulge; with
the most powerful of all such agencies
a university, every Fairhavenite may
say Of his city what saul of Tarsui
said of his university birthplace-"nC
.s mean city" Sp with the "urns" tha
: its populace, and the country from
y which the city cannot be hid, may
er draw from them That is a first ar
d gument for the university. Have il
I so that everybody shall have what i
" better than property-personalit
' Have it so that, while our bodies art
q housed where the trees have been
) felled, our souls may climb up among
4 the stars.
"The great charm of London is that
y there the mystic, the wording, the
L worker, the dreamer, may each hope
II to find their counterparts." These art
\ EmersOn's words as near as | can re
. member them and they furnish an
u other argument for the university
e Can the scholarly find their counter.
parts in Fairhaven? If so, it will have
10 its charm for them. Can families that
n despise excessive devotion to the ma
II terial" find conferees2 If 50, they viii
d be the more readily lured hither.
That is a second argument for tho
N university. Have it that we may al
rs ways have that thing which never
loses its communicating with supe
= rior persons. Augustus used to sit dowr
to dinner with Virgil on one side o
: him, Horace on the other-good com
pany, two poets; and much better fOl
the outer and inner Augustus thar
Nero's solitude and emetic for him
"Plain living, high thinking" was TIN
motto of the Wordsworth household
IT and cheese and bread were palatabl'
Y when Coleridge came over the hill
L and talked. We shall tempt many
philosophers over the Rockies to settl'
on our hills when our university is up
"Tyre bought and sold; Berytus bough
and sold; Sidon bought and sold
Sarepta bought and sold. Where ar
- these cities? Athens taught, and sh
is to this hour one of the capitals o
human thought. A counting-hous
passes away. A school remains"
There is a third argument for tn
university. 1t is not an immediate re
turn on investments it contemplates
IA nevertheless it is good proposition.
IL / look at Fairhaven, not as the termi
nal of great transcontinental railwa.
L but near the terminals of time. ~
counting-house passes away; schoo
remains.n Athens never stood 70
commerce, but for culture. If Fairha
ven shall stand for both she shall be a
- eternal as imperial The men who ar
here at the makings Of her hav
- the best of opportunities to memorable
and immortalize themselves i'm tn
establishment Of idealising agencies
Few can tell who began Boston's con
merce; but few cannot tell who estal
lished her higher education. There al
three arguments for the university
- founded, each of them-for / am M
yet free from the habit-upon a tex
though the sermons are shorter tina
some old ones. Three arguments; moi
l might advance, and, when these al
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