The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-11-16

WAS DullC In CllS state. IOQdy we nave
thirteen trunk lines entering the state
and today 225 trains arrive and depart
from st. Paul and Minneapolis every day
The value of our yearly wheat crop is
equal to one-half the gold mined annual
~ in the world" The speaker alluded to
the prominent part Minnesota men had
played in the councils of the nation in
the past.
PROGRESS OF EDUCATION.
Education in the United States and
Minnesota During the Last Fifty Years
was the subject of an exhaustive paper
read by President Cyrus Northrop of the
state university. He drew a strong COM
parison Of the educational world of today,
with it's thousands of colleges, universe
ties and technical schools, and the few
rural schools and fewer preparatory and
academic Institutions Of fifty years ago.
While the old process of education adj
mittedly made better spoilers than the
average college student Of today yet its
field was narrow and no equal comparison
could be made with the magnificent and
intricate system of education Of the pres
ent day.
The speaker gave a long history of the
progress made in the educational world in
fifty years
SENATOR DAVIS ADDRESS.
Senator C. K. Davis spoke on Progress
of the United States During the Half
Century" He said In part:
The last fifty years have not been an
imaginative period They have been in
have been made since 1850 than for two
hundred years before. They have light
ened labor and utilized waste sub
stances. They have doubled time and
shortened the duration Of the act Of pro-
duction. They have thus given rest and
leisure for intellectual Improvement.
They have cheapened products and they
nave not reduced wages. They have not
barred any of the opportunities for en-
ployment, but have, -on the contrary,
created and increased them. For it ie
produced a machine which can do the
work of many hands has wronged no
t9ii s but has. on the contrary, improv-
universal. An inventory Of the utensils
Of any household will disclose many de-
vices to tighten toll and shorten hours
of work and produce better result which
were unknown fifty years ago. Education
has become universal and its scope I'm
mensely greater. The school, Of what
ever grades Of that time is not the school
school now connects iself Immediately
with the practical life of after years,
whereas it formerly did this in scarcely
any degree
People are better fed, better housed and
better clothed than they were fifty years
ago. The number of books In iowly
houses has increased tenfold, and think
that the family life is better and closer
now than 1t was then.
This Is self-governing people, and we
look to see what effect this great progress
towards indtyidualism has had upon po-
1tlcal affairs. 1t is to be noted, in the
first place, that this independence is the
product of the resources of knowledge
and thought. These resources have been
partly the result, and partly the cause Of
the personal advancement which 1 have
indicated so lmperfectly
Is ind .I,o i
self in political affairs was inevitable Ac-
cordingly, this half century has been sig
naized by great manifestations of free
political action. Formerly political in
consistency was an objectionable apos-
tacy; 1t Is now merely venial. Formerly
the masses followed now they lead. Not
always WtSely-but that is not the cues
ton. It is the fact that we are seeking
This independence of thought and ac-
tlon mas been asserted and sustained by
The crowd often now debates ably.
whereas formerly 1t merely hurrahed or
dogmattzed.
abstract and most difficult questions of
finance and economics. L say nothing
here as to the merits of that most re-
markable controversy, but will say that
no political subject was ever debated so
thoroughly and well by the masses of the
people There was, of course much I'M
founded assertion and deal of delirious
prophecy, but, allowing for all these,
there. was a stock Of information and
vigor of argument employed by men talk
ing With each other never before equaled.
This is as it should be in a nation whose
people settle everything. A people so en-
dowed as ours will settle disputed issue
wisely, and much more speedily than was
done in the earlier times, when irreflec-
ton. ignorance and passion were too
often the prey Of the demagogue or the
victim Of the wise man gone wrong. No
more potent guaranty of our power and
perpetuity has been produced in our one
hundred and twenty-five years of deVel-
opment than this subsection of political
questions to individual independent Opin-
ion.
OF course, individual independence of
action upon political subjects is some
times ruinously destructive. Free thought
is always in rebellion. If resisted too
obdurately by ancient and evil institu-
tons, it brushes and wrecks by force ir-
resistible the entire social fabric Of which
was such an event. 1t was the product
of individual thought which for fifty years
protested, demonstrated, suffered. often
crushed only to rise again, until it pos
sessed itself of the physical force of
thirty millions of people and swept into
one chaos of destruction the good and
nearly thousand years. The most salu-
tary changes. both in the social and in the
material world, are gradual. and the more
imperceptibe in their progress, the better
they are. Had France been plastic one
hundred years ago the lava Of the revo-
luton would not have buried so many
institutions under it's tide of fire. and Ma
poleon would never have appeared as
conqueror. emperor and reformer.
1t is not to be doubted that the people
of the United States will assimilate, and
Will concentrate into unitary action the
many and diverse forces of Individual
thought and action. They have always
done so. If we look back over our his
tory we see many great events and emer-
gencies of the most dangerous character
which our fathers never fOreSaW, which
were encountered, controlled and settled
in every instance to the increase of our
could have suffered and triumphed as
did the United States in our Civil war.
Unprecedented as the mere military result
was, it was slight compared with the fact
that. during the generation which suffered
and prevailed in 1t. the people of the
North and South speedily reunited IN
great national identity of patriotism and
power.
The Louisiana puchase was an event
of uneXampled magnitude of its kind. To
men 1t was sinister, and manifestly de-
structive of our institutions and poHty.
But with the ceSSiOn from Mexico 1t has
become the very essence of our invincible
strength as a nation.
Present conditions of a similar char
acter which at once create anticipation
of benefit or apprehenslons of evil which
have no limits in the compass of the i'm
aginations which conceive them, will. by
the wisdom of a great people whose
thought speech and action are free. be
settled and wisely adjusted to the con
ditions and deStinieS of a civilization
which has moved from It's European and
American seats across the great oceans,
the dark and inert masses of Oriental
and African humanity.
Considering the evolution Of the last
fifty years, its mass, its spirit its mo-