Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1904-11-26
Then today make a big inventory of

the blessings Of the modern public
school system Of America. In olden
times it was the exception for the son
or a daughter of a home to have what
is called q liberal education. Yale and
Harvard and Princeton, then dignified
by the names of college, were in fact
nothing more or less than modern high
schools. These institutions and colleges
like them were very few and far be-
tween. Only here and there we find
that a young man was able to go to
one of them. The great masses Of peo-
pie hundred years ago were entirely
uneducated. II you do not agree with
this conclusion, go and study the old
documents kept among the Revolution
ary records of Boston. You can see
them any time you go to Massachu-
setts. Almost without exception the
men who stood by Samuel Adams and
James Otis in the struggle for Ameri-
can liberties were practically unedu-
Gated men.
But though a hundred or even fifty
years ago the man who had a liberal
education was the exception, the man
of the generation which Is to come
after us who is an uneducated man
will be the exception. So perfect has
our public school system become, so
multitudinous are the American col
leges Of today. so prevalent are libra
.to. o,arr-vhara fhof on A hra ha m lin
coin getting an education by a pine
knot will never again be known in
American political life. Now every
boy, every girl, can develop the brain
to the utmost. Now all our boys and
girls by the magnificent system OF
schools which we have, can ht them
selves for any line Of work that they
will. Oh, carping pessimist, do you
not see any blessing today in the fact
that you can educate your mind so that
you can daily be the associate of the
master minds Of the centuries? Do
you not see a blessing in the fact that
Shakespeare and Burns and Scott and
Irving and Motley and Prescott and
Gladstone and Webster and Edison and
Millet and Raphael and Angelo and
Beethoven and Wagner and Thorvald-
sen can all be invited to your study
desk any night you will, to paint, or
sing, or chisel, or preach, or teach for
you? Education is not mere af1ecta-
ton. Education is the wings of in
spiration which lift a man up so that
! his horizon takes in all lands, all seas,
all worlds and all ages.
Is not the opportunity Of developing
the mind and heart and the life of
man by education a great advance
ment over the educational opportuni-
ties which were offered to the genera
tions that are past and gone?
Thus at this glorious Thanksgiving
time find the world is not only grow
ing better. but 1t is better than 1t has
ever been before. find we have q
better government, q better church,
better homes, better physical and men,
tai men and women and better chill
dren to take our places after we are
| gone. Let us thank God on this com
| ing harvest festival for what he has
/ done for US. May we pray to him 70
give us strength to go on doing the
work he has given us to do, and may
the time come when our future work
may yield even far greater harvests
mental, physical and spiritual, than the
work Of the past and the present have
Welded. In thanking God for the bless
ings of the Thanksgiving day OF 1904
let us also thank him that as this
| Thanksgiving is better than any
Thanksgiving in which our ancestors
lived. so we may employ all our tai
ents and energies to make this world
even a better world in the future thar
It is at the present time.
| We are standing on the threshold,
| We are in the opened door,
| We are treading on border land
| We have never trod before.
Another year is opening,
| Another year is gone;
We have passed the darkness Of the
night,
We are In the early dawn.
We have left the fields behind us
Ger which we scattered seed,
We pass into the future
Which none Of us can read.
The corn among the weeds,
The stones the surface mold,
May yield partial harvest;
We hope for sixtyfold.
Then hasten to fresh labor,
To thrash and reap and sow;
Then bid the new work welcome
And let the old work go;
Then gather all your vigor,
Press forward in the fight,
And let this be your motto:
For God and for the risht!
copyright, 1904, by Louis Klopseh.1