Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1896-01-10
WE HAVE AGE ENOUGH.
No American Need Long for Objects
of Vencration at Home.

NO american NceO AOHA AOA ONJ~~~
of Vencration at Home.
we are accustomed to speak Of every
thing in America as brand-new. 1t
smells to us of varnish more than any
thing else, and when we go abroad we
say Of buildings and of institutions,
ALIAS, we have nothing at all of this
sort in American There is truth in
this, and yet perhaps we do not sufff-
GENTLY realize how long our American
civilization has been growing, and
how much Of the worlds history has
been made in the last 250 years. 1t Is
interesting to find a suggestion Of this
nature cmanating from so thoroughly
English source as the london Specta-
tor, the attention of which has been
drawn to the age Of our American col:
leges by D book of Illustrators Of our
university buildings.
Let US follow out this suggestion,
and, taking Harvard University as
measure Of age, see where the world
was standing at the time Of the foun-
dation Of that institution. This was in
1888. Charles l. was On the throne OF
England. Cromwell was a young mn,
"guiltless Of his country's blood" and
had just been turned back froih his,
plan Of coming to America. The face Of
Germany was then desolated with the
Thirty Years war. Riehelied had just
formed the French Acatemy, AMI was
in the zenits. OF his power. The Span
ish inQuisition was pursuing its relenc-
less work, and Calico was yet busy
with his literary labors. 1t was sixty
years before Peter the Great applied in
London for his naval apprenticeship,
and nearly 100 years before Frederick
the Great came into his Inheritance.
We are apt to think of English litcra-
ture as ante-dating our American civ
llizatiOn; yet at the time the New World
J Lad taken on the educational and NOR
al strength which gave us Harvard Col
leGe, English literature was practically
unwritten, if we except Chaucer, Spen-
ser and Shakespeare. paradise Lost"
was only dream Of Milton, who was
30 years old In $685. and then began his
continental journeys, Dryden was G
years DID, Bunyan was 10, with no
thought of serving under Cromwell or
being Jailed for his views. Pope, Swift,
Addison, Bolingbroke, Bishop Berbe-
| ley, were yet unborn,
These reflections show us how large
a part Of human history belongs TO the
period since the foundation of our old
est university. Into the life Of this
young and growing republic all these
things ontered-the growing hatred Of
ubSolutism, the spread Of religious toll
Grafton, the literary inspiration Of Mil
tons day, the artistic spirit that breath
ed from ST. Peters dome. The Ameri-
! can of to-day need not lack for objects
of veneration in his own country. 1t is
| old enough. Its founders and those
who have preserved it with sufferings
! and death, and sometimes harder SER
vice Of living effort and denial, have
! left bright spots In the dark and devious
strugglings of the human race. To
emulate rather than to aisparage their
character and service is the duty and
privilege of the intelligent patriot Of to-
day. Moreover, to consider the matter
from another point Of view, the para
dox is true that If we are to look to
antiquity, the present age is the old