The united opinion. [volume] (Bradford, Vt.) 1881-1970, 1905-06-02

THE UNITED G
of the United States constitution has
been merely a long series of wars be-
tween the military and civil authori-
ties, governmental CONFUSION after
CONFUSION, revolution after revolution
and upheaval after upheaval What Is
the cause of all this? 1t is not due to
the form of the South American repuD-
lies, but to the ignorance of the South
American people. The reason the
American ballot box for the last hun
bred years has stood as solid as Plym-
outh rock is due largely to the fact that
| it is handed to the American boys over
the schoolhouse desk. We have a
strong republic today because we have
strong, intelligent, individual voters.
Has any government offered greater
educational facilities than ours? No
sooner did the Puritan settle in old
New England than he Immediately be-
gan to erect his institutions of learning.
The pilgrim fathers landed in Plymouth
in 1920, yet only sixteen years later, or
in 1896, we find that Harvard college
was founded in Cambridge on the out
skirts of Boston We find the Dutch
and the English settlers drifting down
into Connecticut, and what happened?
There Yale college is started in, 17O1
at Saybrook. We go south, and what
do we find? Pennsylvania and all the
middle states honeycombed with col
leges and academies. We go west, and
there institutions of learning are scat
tered everywhere. The schoOlrOOm desk
is seen at almost every crossroad, and
the college is intrenched in nearly
every town. All, yes, the modern Ma
poleon would have hard work here
to start an international conflict just
for fun or to crafty his ambitions.
He would have hard work to upset
us financially, socially or politically.
Why? Because the people of this age
in our beloved land have too much in
telligence to follow such leader as the
Little Corsican."
Liberty and Education.
What is the practical application of
this thought? Chief among the endur-
ing guarantees of future peace is the
presence of our schools and school
teachers in foreign lands. Too much
money cannot be expended upon our
public school system. Porto Rico and
the Philippines will never be truly con-
quered for America until American
schools have o611ootad tboco onloDiC+e
and taught them to realize the mean
ing of American liberty. That was
very wise move of the United States
government which q few years ago
brought the Cuban schoolteachers I'M
der the classic walls of old, Harvard.
Roberts college in Constantinople and
the Presbyterian schools at Beirut are
the two wedges which shall overthrow
the brutalities of the Turkish empire.
China, through the influence of our
schools, shall yet become a
nation, sworn to perpetual
peace and to forever avert the horrors
of another Boxer uprising. And that |
vast government of Russia, made up
Of many mixed peoples and heteroge-
neOus nationalities, speaking as many
different tongues as did the workmen |
at the tower of Babel shall yet become |
one through the missions of peace oh, |
my friends, we cannot honor too much .
our public schoolteachers and the pro-
fessors of our colleges as among the
greatest of wonder workers who are
us that war shall be no more!
nd InF
We not only honor the teachers and
professors who have given to us our
but we also honor men like
D. X. Pearson who with their money
have made it possible for this same
kind of teachers to carry that educa-
ton to some who would never be able
to get it but for their beneficence. l
consider D. X. Pearson one of the
most practical and far reaching philan-
thropists Of this age. He does not take
his money and pile it up in some great
city university, while the young people
can find an education in many other
schools near at hand, but he gives here
and there a few thousand dollars to
colleges far out in the coun-
try, away from the great centers. He
gives there a few thousand dollars and
yonder a few thousand dollars, and
his money goes to strug
Cling colleges, where it is bringing
forth it's fruit, some thirty, some sixty
and some a hundredfold. To show
what good his money is doing, l would
quote the words spoken by a great
Judge in the east A friend came to
him one day and said, Judge, don't
you think you would have made your
success quicker If you had graduated
rom Yale or Harvard or Princeton
md had had the help of the alumni as
ISOLATION Of one Of these institutions?'
Well" answered the distinguished
urist, 81 do not know whether l would
nave made a greater success had l
been educated in the east instead of in
llttle farmers college in the west.
But this one fact l know-had there 4
lot been a little farmers college near
o my fathers farm l would never
ave received an education at ALL"
When we praise the schoolteacher as
of international peace we
must also praise the noble men who
i've of their wealth to support the
chools in out of the way places. We
must also praise the Christian dis
iples who give of their little to sup
ort teachers in foreign lands as well
S to help support the small sectarian
chools and colleges in our own.
The Place of the Church.
But what good does mere knowledge