The Waco evening news. [volume] (Waco, Tex.) 1891-1894, 1893-06-30

In the words Of that simple in.
scription is condensed the spirit
that inspired that little band of
patriots to die in the protection of
their native land. Its stirring tone
and heroic purpose animated the
Athenians at "Sea.born Salamis,"
nerved the desperate courage of the
later Lacedemonians at Platea and
My Gale, and finally established the
supremacy of Grecian civilization
in that wonderful spectacle of in.
tellectual greatness which for CEN
turtles commanded the homage and
prompted the imitation of the an
cient world.
LAWN no merely formal and
technical sense-but obedience to
certain fixed aud immutable rules
of thought and conduct--this was
the soul and strength of Hellenic
civilization, which, as Macauley
says, care exempt from mutability
and decay, imperishable as the in
tellectual principle from which they
took their origin, and over which
they exercise their control"
THIS ESSENTIAL ELEMENT
of all rational and permanent
achievement in individual and ma.
tional life thus early accepted and
exemplified in the civilization of
Greece and transmitted through the
centuries by the other members of
the same great Aryan family of
races, has given to modern religion
its federation, to modern science it's
liberality, to modern jurisprudence
its benificent equity, to the whole
of modern SOCIETY it's political and
personal freedom.
The message of Leonidas and his
Spartans, speaking from the simple
mausoleum that marks the spot of
their last struggle and commemo.
rates the glory of their deathless
fidelity and courage, was addressed
not alone to their Grecian COM
patriots, and fulfilled not all of its
mission with the passing away of
Athenian and Lacedemonian
supremacy. Its lesson comes to us
today across the lapse of more than
twenty centuries of human growth
and experience bearing on it's heal
ing wings the very incarnation of
sublime and subtle antidote for evils
and disorders that are as prevalent
and potent here and now, as when
Red Battle stamped his foot on far
Thermopyl@ and made it famous
forever.
We, the inhabitants of the United
States, have reached period in the
development of our institutions
when even the humblest or the
most Indifferent citizen can no
longer ignore the duties of his
social being nor evade the re.
sponsibilities of his political pre-
The time was in the
earlier and formative stages of this
republic when the busy merchant, the
distracted physician, the industrious
lawyer, the worn and weary work
man, the devotee at the stately
shrine of scholarship and science
might affect and practise superior
and harmless Indifference to the de.
tails and policies of government and
legal administration. So long con-
tinued and so prevalent has been
this customary contempt for prac
teal policies and the affairs of
public life, that discussion of such
subjects on an occasion like the
present may seem to many thought.
full and serious persons to be an
INDIGENOUS intrusion = upon the
chaste and scholastic associations
that are wont to cluster around
ceremonies like these.
But let us not mistake the age in
which we live, nor forget the neces-
sites of the land in which we dwell.
Let us understand the purposes of
that higher education in one of
whose proudest temples we are to-
day assembled, and understanding
them, let us recognize that it will
tall far short of its boosted process
and its destined results, if it does
not, on the very threshold of their
careers, prepare its beneficiaries to
exercise the full, free and fearless
functions of American citizenship.