Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1901-11-27

are those disposed TO decry everything
American. Having seen Melrose ana
Glastonbury by moonlight they never be-
hold among US an impressive structure;
or, having strolied through the picture
galleries of the Louvre and the Luxem
bourg, they are disguised with our acad'
emies of art. 1t makes p,a sick TO hear
these people who have been to Europe
come home talking with a foreign accent
and aping foreign customs and talking OF
moonlight on castles by the sea. | think
the biggest fool in the country is the tray-
eled fool.
Advance in Literature.
Considering the youth OF our nation
and the fact that comparatively few per-
sons devote themselves entirely to lit
erature, | think we have great reason TO
thank God for the progress of our Amer
Jean literature. As historians have we
not had in the past such men as Bancroft
and Prescott, as essayists Irving and
Emerson, as jurists Story and Marshall
and Kent, as theologians Edwards ar1
Hodge, as poets Piierrepont and Sprague
and Longfellow and Bryant, as sculptors
Powers and Crawford and Palmer, -
painters such men as West and Cole and
Inman and Kensett? And among the
living Americans what galaxies of intel
leetual splendor and power! Edward Egg
gleston and VIII Carleton and Mark
Twain and John Kendrick Bangs and
Marion Harland and Margaret Sangster
and Stockton and Churchill and Hopkin-
son Smith and Irving Bachelor and Julia
Ward Howe and Amelia Barr and
Brander Matthews and Thomas Nelson
Page and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and
William Dean Howells and score of
others, some of them fixed stars and some
meteors.
AS the pen has advanced our colleges
and universities and observatories have
followed the waving of its plume. Our
literature is of two kinds-that on foot
and that ON the wing. BY the former /
mean the firm and substantial works
which will go down through the centu-
ries. When, on the other hand, / speak
of literature ON the wing, | mean the
newspapers of the land. They fly swiftly
and wants but leave permanent results
upon the public mind. They fall noise
lessly as a snowflake, but with the
strength of an Alpine glacier. This I'M
paralleled multiplication of intelligence
will either make or break us. Every
morning and evening our telegraph Of
| fees, with huge wire rakes, gather up the
news of the nation and of the whole
world, and men write to some purpose
when they make pen out of a thunder
bolt. 1t needs great energy and decision
and perseverance for a man to be ignor-
ant in this country to-day. 1t seems TO
me that it requires more effort for him
| to keep out knowledge than to let it in.
The mailbags at the smallest pOstotfiees
disgorge large packages of intelligence
| for the people. Academies with maps,
| globes and philosophic apparatus have
| been taking the places of those institu-
| tions where thirty or forty years ago you
were put to the torture. Men selected
| for their qualifications are intrusted with
| the education of our youth instead of
| those teachers who formerly with dro-
vers shout and goad compelled the young
generations up the hill of science. Happy
| childhood!
Some Marvellous Changes.
How things have marvelously changed.
| We used to cry because we had to go to
| school. Now children cry if they cannot
go. Many of them can intelligently dis
| cuss political topics long before they have
| seen ballot box or, leased by some po-
etc muse, can compose articles for the
newspapers. Philosophy and astronomy
and chemistry have been so improved
| that he must be a genius at dullness who
knows nothing about them. On one shelf
Of a poor mans library is more practical
| knowledge than in the 100000 volumes
Of ancient Alexandria, and education is
| possible for the most INDECENT, and no
! Legislature or Congress for the last fifty
years has assembled which has not had in
! it rail splitters and farmers and droyers
or men who have been accustomed to toll
| ing with the hand and the foot.
The pen which Moses dipped in the
light of the first morning and jeremiah
1 filed with tears and Ezekiel thrust in vi
sions of fire and Matthew touched with
the blood of a cross aud st. John dipped
| in the splendors OF beatific glory--that
pen has wrought marvels for all classes
! of or people. To-day your libraries and
colleges and schools and publishing
houses and churches celebrate the ever
growing conquests of the American pen,
and our prospects are all the time bright
ening.
The 6lorIOuS PrOS peCts-
The graintields have passed their har-
vests above the veto of drought and del
uge. The freight cars are not large
enough to bring down the grain TO the
seaboard. The canalboatsf are crowded
with breadstuffs. Hark to the rushing
of the wheat through the great Chicago
corn elevators! Har< to the rolling of
the hogsheads Of tile Cincinnati pork
| packers! Enough TO eat Enough 10
wear. If some have and some have not,
then may God help those who have to
| hand over to those who have not, Clear
the track for the rail trains that rush
| on bringing the wheat and the cotton
and the rice and the barley and the oats
and the hops and the lumber and the
leather and everything for man and ey-
ery thing for beast.
Lift up your eyes, o nation Of Gods
| right hand. at the glorious prospects,
! Build larger your barns for the harvests.
Dig deeper the watts for the spoil of the
VINEYARDS. Enlarge the warehouses for
| the merchandise. Multiply galleries of
art for the pictures and statues. Ad-
| vance. o nation of Gods right hand. but
remember that national wealth. if IN
| sanctiied. is sumptuous waste, is moral
1 ruin. is magnificent woe, is splendid rot.
fenness. is gilded death. Woe TO us for
the wine watts Of drunkenness wallovs In
them. Woe to US fer the harvest If greed
sickles them! Woe TO rs for the mer-
chandise if avarice swallows it, Woe
fo MS for the cities if misrulc walks them!
Woe to the land il God defying crime de-
bauches il, Our only safety is ia more