Willmar tribune., 1903-07-08

our ldno. no hover OF potr1Otl0m
can not flourish where there is no
home life to nourish and protect it.
The evils of hasty and i'll. advised mar
riage, Of divorce and social sins, are
national evils because they are cankers
that destroy the very roots of patrio-
tism. A nation full of true homes will
be nation filed with unselfsh patri-
otism.
No people were ever patriotic who
did not sustain the free school system.
1t has meant so much in moulding the
lives and shaping the characters of
the citizens of this land that the worth
OF the public school can not be
estimated us a producer of patriotism.
An uneducated people cannot be
truly patric tic for they have no free
land to love. Incapable of self gov
ernment, they are governed by others,
and generally in such way that they
can cherish no love for their country's
government or institutions.
For three hundred years the inhabi-
tants of the Philippine islands have
been an oppressed, down-trodden and
benighted people. They have not
known the me aning of patriotism be-
cause they have been uneducated and
unenlightened. They fought, but not
so much for love of country, as for
individual rights and personal free
dom. But since civilization and en-
llghtenment have entered those is.
lands, even in meager way, the fires
OF patriotism are beginning to burn,
and one of these days, when ignorance
has been driven back before the march
OF learning, those people will so dear.
ly love their country that they will de-
sire, as we desired, self governme mt
and independence as q nation.
|
Let US, then, cherish our public
schools and all our institutions OF
learning as dynamoes of patriotism.
Let US remember that the men and wo.
men who foster the educational inter.
ests of our land are no less ardent in
their patriotism than those who foster
its military interests. Our country
DEEDS the public school far more than
it needs the standing army.
In his farewell address, Washing.
ton ascribed q three-fold found datior
to good citizenship, viz: morality, in
telligence and religion.
No less statesman than DAME
Webster said on one occasion that
Whatever makes men good Chris
tians makes them good citizens"
| When DsTocq ueville, the eminen
French statesman, had visited ou
country to study its institutions, b,
said in his report to the French sen
ate:
II went, at your bidding, an
passed along their thoroughfares O
trade; assembled their mountains an,
went down their valleys; I visite'
their manufactures, their commercia
markets and emporiums of trade;
entered their judicial courts and legis
lative halls, but sought every wher
in vain until 1 entered the church.
was there, as l listened to the soul
equalizing, and soul elevating princi
pies of the Gospel of Christ, as they
fell from Sabbath to Sabbath, upol
the masses of the people that learEe'
why America was great and free ant
why France was slave"
| In view of such statements as these
made by men eminent in statesman
ship, need 1 say that q man can no.
be patriotic, in the truest sense, wht
has no regard for that institutio,
which, more than any other, has free
the hearts OF men with patriotic
ardor and with devotion to prirci
Piles of freedom and equality withou
which our country would have nevel
been
1.-THE land of the free,
And the home of the brave?"
4 Il
/ say it without fear of successful
contradiction that If it were not fo1
the influence of the religious lif