Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1907-06-28

OF our probibitive and punitive statutes,
and in the final analysis is the arblter in
the solution of most of the civic problems
of the day.
While it is true that we need men with
the courage of their convictions, the diff
Guilty is to find men with any sensible
convictions on public questions; 1t may
be stated as a metaphysical fact, that if
men have any convictions they will al
ways have courage to express them.
The demagogue is abroad in the land
with his nostrums and TRADES. Appeals
to the cupidity and prejudices of tie
electorate are often the most potent
weapons in partisan warfare. Antics
worthy of the hippodrome are resorted
to, TO attract or delude the electors. The
alumni of our colleges then should be in
the forefront OF the battle to check such
influences which effect perversions of the
public judgment.
The educated man who steals away
from public and political duty and then
grumbles all the time about schools, the
saloon, taxes and the law is not entitled
to much respect; neither is the recuse,
ascetic or the intellectual athlete.
The imperative call of the age TO the
educated man or woman is to awaken
and maintain virile and healthy opinions
upon all the civic problems of the day,
for it is right thinking, which is the pre-
cursor of right action, that makes the
nation strong and great.
Free governments are not established
to make tariff schedules, to regulate
freight rates or to enact laws to enhance
the wealth of the individual citizen or
the collective wealth of the nation but
to protect their citizens in their inalen-
| IL L 4 Ia Al.
strength and character.
1t becomes an elementary duty, then,
which diploma imposes upon the grad
uate, to raise his hand as a relentless foe
of corruption, fraud and peculation, in
every form and to awaken and maintain
public conscience which shall be keenly
sensitive to every infraction of the moral
as well as statute law of every public
official
1t is such a public sense of right which
is doing more to make men faithful in
the recognition and discharge of their
public duty than all the laws in our
statute books. Oftentimes the little fing-
er of scorn is moro severe and humiliat-
ing punishment than the walls of the
penitentiary.
No person can raise that little finger
more effectively than the graduates of
our colleges. Official malfeasance is not
found only in great cities or in high
stations, but often appears in the small
municipality, in the township or village.
Pharisaism, though bitterly assailed 1900
years ago by the Savior of mankind, still
exists. 1t is not necessary to play the
part of the man with the muck rake or t.
become professional reformer to find a
field to buckle on the armor to fight fol
the cause of civic morality.
Our lawmakers are not all Solons, but
it is seldom. if ever, that bad laws are
enacted, but when bad laws are defied OF
evaded, greater harm is done than by
their enforcement. Neither disorder OF
violence on the one hand nor bigotry OF
intolerance on the other ever won NOR
al victory. During the present month
$4,000 or more graduates of our colleges
and universities will be added to the lit
tie company of literally educated mer
and women in our country; but wha
odds they have to contend with when We
recall the fact that during the past fsca
year over 100000 immigrants have
poured in upon us from foreign lands.
Next to the public schools, the mos
potent factor in educating and training
the strangers within our gates to become
decent citizens is the wholesome restraint
and regard for the laws of the State.
1t is not necessary for the bepeficiarie
of a liberal education to become reform
ers, philanthropists or sociologists
The ideas here advanced are not altruis
tic or doctrinaire, but rather recogni
ton by the college graduate that he is
citizen of great country, and that it il
his duty to exercise thought, courage an(
patriotic judgment to be worthy Of tn,
privileges of such citizenship.
To do less is almost treason to tn,
State, and to neglect the performance O.
such public duty makes the educated
guilty of such indifference a sympathise
with wrong doing.