The Portland daily press., 1892-08-18


Scholars anb poets awaken their strain
Under the elm trees that shadow their door.
So shall our notes, like the river that winds
Faithfully on through century's prime
Voice the rich flow of ilustrious minds,
Written in story, enduring With time.
Hallowed for aye, be the thought and the deed,
Blended in one which the record recalls;
Green groves of Fryeburg; ye witnessed their
creed,
Signaling triumphs, renewed in these halls.
Swift on the waves of its tremulous tide.
Thought leads US back to assemblies OF yore,
Spirits, it may be, that Walk at our slde,
Foot steps, unechoed that pass through the
Sing to these gifted ones tenanted here.
Young men and maidens, the pride OF their
time;
Virtue ranks greatness and fashions it's sphere,
Lives that ring true, are with Heaven in chime.
Following the ode was the address
of President Hyde of Bowdoin College,:
President Hyde's Grafton.
s'The place of the Academy in the
Educational system"
The aim of education is to lead out the
mind into the world of truth. It is to
make man at home in his environment. 1t
is to enable him to come into his intel
lectual inheritance. All schools do this,
from the lowest to the highest. The
primary school enables the ordinary
child to understand and use the signs by
which ordinary ideas are communicated.
The grammar school enables him to use
these signs with correctness, elegance
and precision, and to appreciate ell
egance and precision in the
use of them by others. The
high school and academy en-
able him to understand, not merely
his own language and the mental pro-
cesses necessary for every day life, but
the languages of other lands and other
ages, and teaches him to penetrate into
the thoughts of Nature and to appreciate
the words and deeds of the worlds great
minds. What at the academy stage is
potential, general, vague, formal, the
college endeavors to make actual, de-
finite, clear, and substantial. The uni
versity no longer seeks to acquaint the
mind with many things, but to make it
the instrument and expression OF some
special sphere of truth.
The academy is at the same time the
end of that education which aims to fit
pupils directly for practical life, and the
beginning of that education aims to
enable its disciples to breathe freely the
atmosphere of universal truth.
The country academy has an honorable
mission. 1t is to the scattered population
of the farming communities what the
high school is to the compact population
of the large towns and cities. In the
comparative freedom from domestic and
social distractions in the greater matur-
ity of it's pupils, the academy has many
advantages over the high school. The
country academy, too, has many advan-
tages over the academy which draws its
patronage from large cities. To the for
mer the children Of the farmer and the
mechanic go; to the latter the children
of the rich are sent.
The country academy secures the very
best material in the land, in the boys and
girls who come to it full Of vitality and
vigor from the hillside farms. You are
not burdened with the dead weight of
the sons of nervous, over-strained, arti-
| fetal parents; boys who resort to arti-
fetal stimulants to keep their waning
vitality up to the highest pitch of ex-
citement, and who are ready to be swept
| to destruction in the wave of dissipation
which is never far behind artificial and
| unnatural WAYS of living. Your students
come with Generations of hardihood and
temnerance tenn and honest toll behind them.
and hence with abundant power to carve
ont a splendid future for themselves.
| For smartness and show and superficial
ACCOMPLISHMENTS the country bow is
behinn his urban brother. But for the
| soiid and substantial worl, which is the
condition of permanent usefulness and
honor in every walk of life, especially in
those that are highest. give me the bow
Who Who had A father and mother. at any
rate a orandfather and grandmother. who
i1na1u Inc Row tn swing a scythe and hold a
Now Now and and break a colt and milk az cow,
and make butter and cheese. and cut up
nork ,,.,,. .'rr and knit a pair of STOCKINGS and
make make a nair of trowsers.
Tn view Of the magnificent opportuni-
ties IS Of the country academies. the endow-
ment es t. and nd Equipment Of these institutions
;s % The we weakest noint in our educational
svsten @ here in Maine. It is imnossible
~ ~ secure .e1 a and retain the best teachers.
r. have bean @ hnt seven wears in Maine.
vet within that time | have seen every
academy "a that sends students to Bowdoin
tsS CoIleoe save save one. change principals.
some If Them several times. That one
49, -. u oao - y a1,o.,orod ;s +ho on1r o,o