The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1902-06-10
FOUR IMPORTANT COMMENCEMENT AID.
DRESSES.

SEASON. GAdG HAS Ju0S
ended in North Carolina, but having
heard Dr. Vann's b~accalaureate SER
mon to the Baptist Female University
graduates, DR.. Backus's address at the
A. and M. College commencement,
Governor Aycock's speech at Salem
Female Academy, and DR.. Van Dykes
address at Trinity, we think we have
had our share of the good things.
X x X X X X
AS a preacher we think DR.. Vann
has no superior in the State. And
in his baccalaureate sermon this year
he was at his best. The nobility of
service was his subject, and he en-
phasized the fact that the dominating
motive of all great lives is a desire to
help others. This, too, is the true re-
ligion, he said; the desire to serve God
by aiding His creatures. "The man
who asks only to be saved from Hell
makes a towards plea, and the man
who desires only to reach Heaven IS
making a beggar's prayer; true reli-
gion shows itself not in these things
but in a passionate desire to serve
God and man" DR.. Vann also urged
the dignity of labor. "God gave to the
world directly from His hand two men,
Adam and Jesus Christ, the one a
gardener, the other a carpenter, and
so made clear that all of us should
labor with our hands and know the
touch of tools"
X Y y X =
DIR. Backus's subject was can Age
of Invention and Discovery" which,
of course, caused every one to expect
that he would talk of nineteenth cen
fury progress. But he didn't. A
greater century than that just ended,
he argued, was that from 1850 to 1850,
"the transition period from the dark
ness of the Middle Ages to the light
of modern civilization'-the century
when an astonished world saw and felt
the work of Columbus, da Cana, Co.
pernicus, Martin Luther, Gutenberg,
Calvin, Raphael, and Michael Angelo.
In this period the New World was
found; the shortest route to India dis
covered; Copernicus shattered the
false theories concerning the plane
tary system; the first printed book
made its appearance; the compass
came into general use, and enabled
to steer boldly into unknown
seas; gunpowder revolutionized war
fare; the Renaissance in science and
art heralded a new day, and the super
stitions that had long held men in
bondage were swept away like chaff
before a fire. 1t was indeed a century
of marvellous changes, which DR.. Back
us recounted with such eloquence Is to
shake the faith of some in the boosted
superiority of our own time.
X x x K x X X
Gov. Aycock's Salem speech was of
a high order. One of the striking
statements made in the outset was
that "the real Abou Ben Alden can
only exist in him who has first set his
heart upon God, for no one truly
loves his fellOwman who does not first
love Him who made his fellowman;"
then, after briefly reviewing Salem
history, he took up the States educa-
tional problems. One paragraph of
speech deserves especial atten-
ton, and we reproduce it herewith:
owe are in a period when the de-
mand is for universal education and
that demand can only be adequately
made and can only be sustained by
the right sort of education. We must
only teach, but we must teach
We must teach all the people
to know something, to do something,
to be something. knowledge is pow
er, but it is power merely because it
enables us to be something, and to be
something is what constitutes charac-
ter and this last is the only thing
which we can take into the world to
come. Education is not reading and
alone-or rather, it is reading
and writing, but it is something more,
something better, something higher,
for we read and write not as an end,
out as a means, and if we take what
know to be the end we shall
neither do anything nor be anything.
All that there is in the books, calcu-
us, poetry, astronomy, science, what
'oeVer things may be taught us, are