Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1903-01-01

speakers of the English tongue, now
spread from side to side of the world
in wonderful degree. The physical
and intellectual vigor its glory is of
Norman origin.
Their martial and crystallizing in
fuence startled Europe and electrified
the Saxon and Celtic world. They
became the type and leaders of west
ern civilization who famed the
sparks of ancient culture in order to
rekindle the flame of progressive
science.
This marvellous transformation is
the result of the noble. high-spirited,
and observant Normans with the fresh
blood of new race of conquerors.
We can hardly imagine what the
world would be if these Normans had
never existed. If these great con-
querors, statesmen, political econo-
mists, composers, the philosophers,
the men of science, the poets, the
original thinkers of Normandy had
never appeared upon the stage of
human life, the education of the hui
man race would have been incomplete.
the intellectual enjoyments of man
kind would have been curtailed. its
civilization arrested, it's sense of the
beautiful stunted, and it's store of
artistic treasures impoverished and
so we may measure in some degree the
stupendOus character of the debt of
gratitude which is owing to the Nor
mans by the whole civilized world.
And when all these wonderful and I'M
paralleled achievements performed by
them are viewed from a British stand
point, l consider it absurd for Eng
lishmen to talk about England" to
honor good King Alfred" by Ma
tional commemoration in 1901, king
Alfred" they say, being the founder of
Great Britain's maritime supremacy
which is perverse and contrary to all
historical accounts; the Saxons, the
Germans, or the Teutonic nations,
with the exception of the mortimer,
hardly knew what a vessel on the
ocean was. In those days they were
all landlubbers.
The Normans have left behind them
the memory of a period of splendour
of dominion, which, even if it does not
keep the imagination their decend-
ants in a perpetual glow, remains a
symbol, as monumental as visible and
enduring as the human race, and his
tory itself.
The geographical position of Nor
f1o +o5, l.
Anglo-Norman race, as mentioned
above, is worthy of notice, in the
march of civilization, from north to
south, and thence westward to the re-
hottest quarter in the track of the
sun. Her lofty, weird, gigantic snow
capped mountains that stretch their
tall heads far above the clouds and
+ loom up like towering r"onarchs, are
| extending their open laini4 to receive
and impart the physical and intel
lectual wealth of nations. Her peo-
pie united the hardihood of the
mountaineer with the elasticity of
maritime tribes, which produced the
remarkable, adventurous, chivalrous
and heroic Norsmen the master race
of medieval Europe
Norway is only dot on the
map of the world, but on will find
that the early mortimer, inspired by
their ancient mythology, developed
her, like huge tree full of vigor, ex-
tending long branches over all Eu-
rope.
The service we herein attempt is to
portray the relations of tho present
to the past and future, by tracing
some of the mightiest elements of HUI
man advancement.
William the Conqueror was the en-
cyclopedia of civilization in his time;
he fortified antiquity t. such an
overlooking extent that all the parent
geniuses were recognized as his chill
dren, and the richest harvests ever
garnered, were accredited to the seed
he had sown.