The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1901-06-13

next to, naught, those who have at
tanned my age know better; our
lives cover a period long enough
that we can note progress and chat
of a very marked kind, shown no
where so much as in the changed
public opinion which prevails.
Twenty-Five years ago how many
towns in the State had graded
schools? They could be counted on
the fingers of one hand. How many
students did the University have?
How many did Trinity College,
Wake Forest, and Davidson have?
All of them together not over ivo
hundred. now many high schools
/ of State reputation were there?
Not more than three, if so many.
How many buildings has the uni
versity, Davidson, Wake Forest,
Trinity, and other colleges erected
within a quarter of a century? L
need not mention the Agricultural
and Mechanical Colleges for both
races and the Normal Colleges with
their fine equipment. Go any
where you will in North Carolina
today and count over the magniTi~
cent graded school buildings and
colleges aud academies that IWen-
ty years ago were not in existence
and you will open your eyes. What
does it mean when, beside the Fac
tory and the mill, the school build
ing has its place preserved ana set
apart? 1t.means That in this manu-
| featuring and commercial age with
the mad rush for the dollar, North
Carolinians, at least, are going 20
provide, in the language of Gov.
Holt, For the training of imInor-
! tai mind
IT believe that with all your sta
! tistics there are no greater people
than these North CarOIinians.
Much has been written and spoken
recently about emancipating the
white man in North Carolina po-
litically and there is something
| in it, but at the bottom, no man
ever saw North Carolina when It's
people were afraid TO say and act
as they thought. Were they afraid
on the Goth of May, TITS? Didn't
| they take their time before going
into THE compact called the JIM
ion," and did anybody dictate when
they refused to go out IN 1851?
Were they afraid TO impeach Hol-
den? Were they afraid of Grant'a
eral threats in 1876? Were they
1894, when in their :mpatience
cied wrongs they overturned The
existing order of things? Could
the demons of hell have prevented
H.
people care for the threat of
United States troops or United
States courts? The political eevo-
lutiOns in 1894 and 1896 and those
of 1898 and 1900 show most con-
clusively that we have not been
waiting for anybody, or any act of
Carolina manhood
My friends, we are the potters and
there is nothing the matter with the
clay. Pead the record if you are able
to find it of North Carolina boys at
Northern colleges, at West Point, at An
napolis, at Princeton. at Havcrford, at
Cornell, at Yale, at Harvard at Johns
Hopkins, at Columbia; they have swept
the honors wherever they have gone. 1t
is grand privilege you have for work
ing for such a cause, for such people,
and for such a State. Be proud of your
vocation and your profession Magnify,
as you have right to do your office.
You have heard much of late about
sea-DoWer, world power, commercial
supremacy, and national expansion. but
the only supremacy worth while among
civilized nations is intellectual supremacy
based upon moral bedrock principles.
Sea-power, ndeed Glance back at his
tory? The Phoencians were the great
est a-farng people of their time, and
yet the simple fact that they invented
the alphabet, although we are not told
that they did much more than invent the
alphabetie characters, is Of far more in
terest and consequence TO the civilization
Of the world and counts far more in the
standing of that people and their reputa
tion than all the voyages that they ever
made ever all the oceans known to the
ancients. World power, did you say?
Shall we go back and study the annals
of the barbarian nations Of the world,
nations which have by the power of arms
subdued nation after nation until there
we're left no more worlds to conquer?
What niche have they all filled in the
temple CT historical fame unless by some
chance they have heard of letters and
have become learned people a the same
time they became a powerful people.
" 1 met traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs
Of stone
Stand n the desert. Near them en- the
sand