The Charlotte Democrat., 1896-06-11
.RBV. B. D. SlNCLiIRS LECTURE
TO THE GRADED SCHOOL,.
NORTH CAROLlNA's SCHOOL WORK.
That is What Has Held The State in the
Front Ranks-Her Regard for 1duca-
tion Is Where Her Future Lies
The Speech in Full

tion Is Where Her Future Lies
The Speech in Full
Some astute observer has said that
North Carolina has made herself famous
by importing horses and hogs and ship
ping men. Granted that, of all the states,
the Old North State has been most pro-
life of good men and women, and out OF
her necessity has exported her surplus.
The hour has struck high twelve wien
her citizens should solemnly ask them-
selves it they can longer spare her sons
who have glorifed her history in other
lands. Rich in presidential timber.
with Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk
and Andrew Johnson, she has merely laid
the eggs which other States have hatch
/ ed. No Senator ever filed the halls Of
congress with more attentive auditors,
or guided the helm of this great nation
through more perilous seas to greater
achievement, than Thomas FL. Benton
HUT it was for Missouri to recognize hi;
worth and elevate him to the Senate 8
Time fails me to multiply instances
which would fill volumes, but l direct
your attention to these most potent facts
for the purpose of asking what has made
tho greatness of North Carolinas sons
and daughters. Barring the fact that
God sifted the best blood of Europe in
the fail of his Providence in order to plant
our fair Carolina with that Scotch and
Scotchs Irish blood which has left it's in
delible impress upon all peoples, no other
factor has been of such significance as the
high value which this State has ever
placed upon Education. And it was in
this very city of Charlotte in 1855 that
the first effort was made in this
colony for the establishment of Queens
Museum, the first chartered institution
of learning in North Carolina. Des"
pite the royal ire of King George who
twice vetoed a charter granted by
the Royal Governor to Queens
Museum, tenacity of our fathers to the
cause of learning in this very place was OF
such vitality that even the throes of rev
olution did not prevent their cherished
object For as soon as peace was de-
clared, the Provincial Legislature es-
tabished it as Liberty Hall Academy.
Hence it is no wonder that we this night
witness this large gathering of parents.
children, and citizens, who are to pay
|
in their veins for a century and u half
There is crime against God and home
and native land, which the warrant of
the officer can not reach, which the judge
upon the bench cannot punish, which no
penal or civil code of man prohibits; but
crime as black as any which ever
stained the criminal records. 1t 1s the
crime of being false to ourselves, our chill
l lift my hand against the breast that
nestled me in infancy as breath aught
against the fair name of North Carolina;
but as son whispers words of tender
counsel iu his mothers ear, would lift
my voice this night so that it might ring
from the mountains to the sea, that the
chief danger to North Carolina in the
next decade may be from the tide of for
eign influence and ignoble ideas which are
revoutionizing America and are changing
the current of that stream of virtue, lib
erty, and independence to the mainten-
ance of which our fathers pledged their
lives their fortunes and their most sacred
honor.
We are living in an age,on ages telling.
It is the age of change and irreverence
and iconoclasm. 1t is an age in which old
truths and fundamental axioms are as
ruthlessly cast aside as ever in this worlds
history. The irruption of the Goths and
Vandals upon the fair plains and brilliant
civilization of Greece and Rome is but
pigmy compared 20 the social forces
which have we'll nigh inundated Amer
ica, and in some sections SO far submer~
ged what was reverenced by the fathers
as to have obliterated them.
Theories Of aOciatu md of ohuroh ond
of morals, startling to the sober second
thought of our time. have been so indus
triousIy and so lavishly sown broadcast,
that multitudes cannot even get time to
think; and principles for which men have
even fought, ,bled and died, have gone down
in the maeistrom of an irreverent and a
radical age.
But thank Godl North Carolina yet
occupies an unique position in the sister
hood of States by virtue of her geo-
graphical position. the sturdy integrity
of her people, and above all the loyalty
with which she safeguards the education
of her children. The wild waves of
change and social disaster have as yet
beaten in vain against the solid wall of
her character and her constitutions.
There are advantages in push and pro.
gress, but there is more often Pandora's
box of evils in their train. There is
destiny in being Rip Van Wrinkle State
which is not fortuitous and of which we
may be truly proud. In the conservatism
which has ever characterized North Carr
olina, there has been preserved type of
manhood and womanhood which is the
precious heritage of her sons and daugh>
ters. There is a value to-day in the
boundless undeveloped resources of this
great State not only in her mines and
forests, in her streams and fields, but in
the brain and Drawn of her people, which
fear, is but partially comprehended Not
by accident did God preserve on this
Southeastern slope of the alleghanies the
type of character which diffsrentates
your people from other sections as much |
as the Cheviot Hills divide those of the |
land of the thistle, from the land of the |
rose.
One can almost weep as the tour
ist wends his way through barren and |
rocky New England as he witnesses the
innumerable sbrines which have been |
erected over men and deeds that are in.