The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1894-06-28

1lOhC CdA SlllluluS duu Vitality COuuo'
For this cause every University which
aims at the highest results should give
It's teachers time and means for re-
search. Tue overloaded curriculum
which exhausts the energies of the
instructor IL the routine Of teaching
and lecturing, avenges itself by max
ing the lessons dead and the Lectures
barren. TO the professor no less than
TO the student the scholar should have
lts OLD Greek sense of leiSure-lelsure
TO reflect, TO assemble conclusions, TO
Coordinate results-leisuTe TO work,
10 combine the known, to test conjec-
lure py experiment, to divine the I'M
known. Without leisure to labor in
his speciality the teachers life is miss
spent.
The influence upon the student also
is OF supreme valIY. He learns the
holiness of truth and is taught to see
In the search OF that pearl, the great
duty OF mans life. The words OF the
master, now, yer great lie may be,
cease TO bind ana 10 Gull When he
has gazed with his own eyes into the
secrets OF history or of nature
he begins to find for himself the
only satisfying ground for conviction.
Ii the university gave to her pupils
no other POSSESSION, they might well
sit for years at her feet to form this
one habit of the mind. The great vice
OF good men ie to rest upon conven-
tlODs, TO accept compromises, TO be
content with something less than the
right ana the true, to build tor the
day; thar is, rather than tor the ages
that are to come. The trained and
cultured spirit cannot be thus dead
ened 10 tde demands Of that counsel
OF perfection which the search for
truth pOsIulates. 1t sees too clearly
the intrinsic ialsty and folly of error,
and Is too uenstble of its Ultimate and
Inevitable doom. Diacarding make
shifts, it adjudges each step wise or
foolish as it leads towards or away
from the goal OF truth and right. 1t
fixes hope and directs action upon
this sole point. The man who declared
that "pubic office was public trust"
and who threw away the presidency
of this great country rather than
accept it with the burdens of dis
honest dollar and an oppressive tariff,
has found among college men his
strongest backing because his acts
appealed to this educated sense of the
inviOlability of truth and right.
The University which is true to her
sacred mission of disseminating truth
serves the state by cultivating in her
sons this capacity to live in and for
ideals. AS it is true that not all col
lege men learn this lesson. so it is true
that there are avenues to this capaci-
ty which do not lead through college
portals. 1t is one secret of construct
i've genius, wherever and however de-
veloped. But the university aims to
do systematically and consciously
what other agencies do fortuitously
and unconsciously Her training is
the eliminating stage in process of
selection which begins with the pri-
mary schools. The best minds
and spirits are there sifted out
and passed on to the acad>
envy. Here they are again tested
and the residuum conducted to the
university, where they are again sub.
mitted to the most potent academical
influences. A young man thus Sc
lected and thus trained enters civil
life. His imagination is fired by the
greatness of his country and her re-
sources; his enthusiasm kindled by
the swiftness of her progress and the
magnitude of her destiny. With faith
in the future of his native land, with
fidelity to the lessons of history, with
loyalty to the claims of truth, he COM
5ines the Students babit of patient
observation and calm reflection, his
distrust of custom, his unfettered
thought, his boldness to Judge and de.
eide. To men like these the great re-
public of which we are citizens owed
its origin, owes its present safety, and
will owe its future greatness. OF
such were Edmund Randolph and
George Mason and Richard Lee and
Thomas Jefferson, those great Vir-
ginians who were so conspicuous in
that campaign of education, which
united the colonies in their su-
preme struggle for independ-
ence, and then gathered the
we'll nigh wasted fruits of victory by
consolidating the free and independ-
ent states into the iBdissOluble union.
1t was the college men of that epoch
who secuI ed for liberty upon this con-
tinent. not q brief asylum from which
the fires of revolution would soon
drive her to take flight, but an eter-
nal temple and home. 1t is to men
of like training and habit that we
look today when rotting conservation
or anarchistic violence threatens
wreck TO church or school or state.
And through all future ages such men
will be the chosen tools of heaven in
building the higher destinies of man.
Nor is it only by their work that
such men serve the state. Their quiet
influence and example stimulate pub
lie thought, illumine public con.
science, sober public resolve. Such
men as Austin and Houston, great by
nature and greatly trained in the
school of life, are at long intervals
sent forth by the divine power to do
some great and indispensable work.
The one consolidated the first settlers
of. this great republic in the resolve
to secure civic order and con.
stitutional liberty, at q pc
riod when no man of conven-
tional training could perhaps have
gained their ears or touch their hearts.
The other led them in one heroic pro-
cession from the darkness of the
Alamo TO that supreme charge of vic
toriOus valor at San Jacinto, where a
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