, 1908-06-18

" WI AA1s ~ 49,
the story of how a certain man, with
three hundred men, stood n day at
a little pass in the mountains, and
they stood there and dared to die, all
three hundred of them, for the love of
their country. Leonidas was the name
of the man, the pass was Thermopylae,
the people we're the S%partans, the in.
vaders were the Persiana. II you have
not read the story recently, II should
ask you tomorrow morning, many of
you could not tell me the name of the
man, nor of the pass, nor of the people,
nor of the invaders. And 1t is we'll
that you cannot. for 1t has no message
to you told in that way.
The Story and a Boy.
But suppose boy studies that
scene, remembering the Spartan he
and the Spartan life. how the Spartan
home was the Spartan country. Sup
pose he understands how the Spartan
mother gave her boy to her country's
army as she would have given him to
bethe guard at her own doorstep. Then
SUPPOSE he understands how Leonidas,
his own mothers Spartan son, took
three hundred other boys just like
himself not soldiers, but shepherd
lads, and went out yonder and stood
at the mountain pass. And then sun
pose he understands how, betrayed,
three hundred of them went down to
death in a single night in defense OF
mother and the home that they loved
[ tell you that for eves afterwards,
when hat boy comes to his manhood
with the vision of that scene OF cour-
age and loving heroism before him;
when his city is threatened by institu-
tons that would destroy the home that
he loves, he, too, will dare to die, If
need be, in defense OF mother and
home and native land.
Message from the Fact.
The same truth runs through the
whole gamut of possible lines of study.
1t is not so much the thing which one
studies, but it is the message of the
thing. 1t is of little consequence to me
simply to have given to me a fact
What I want is the message which thai
fact has for me, its bearing upon the
life which l wish to live and the work
which l wish to do. But it is said that
we are living in an age of practical
things. This is a time of doors and not
of dreamers, and 1t Is SO. 1t is a new
world that the last quarter of a cen
turny has brought to us, new in moth
ing so much as in our changed rela-
tions toward the material things.
A Changing Song.
Our fathers sang, Farewell, vain
world, farewell" and they mean it.
But we have concluded to make this
world a world from whence vanity
hath departed and we have decided to
stay in it and to make it a habitation
for the sons of God. The flashing OF
the lightning out of the sky, the road
of the swiftly running stream, stand
to us now only as invitations to greater
opportunity, and as highways, and to.
ward a great culture. The worlds
wants have increased.
over and Not Through.
We want people to build for us
great steel structural bridges across
IL streams, and to build them 80 that
we may be certain that when We at
tempt to go across them We shall go
across them and not go through them
with the debris of the awful wreck. We
want people to build for us great sky
scrap.ng buildings in our mighty cities,
SO that we may live at home and work.
We want more rapid transit across
the country, a hundred miles an hour,
if possible, Especially when sick wife
or child is at the other end Of the
journey. said to you we wanted
somebody to build great steel struc-
tural bridges across our mighty
streams. Do you know how they in
you. There is another way, but / shall
tell you how they really do it. Some
time when you are sitting in your
room with breaking heart and stream
ing ayes waiting for the searchers to
bring you word whether in the turbu-
lent turgid waters of the angry stream
beneath, they have yet found the dead
bodies of your wife and child, they tell
you that there was a flaw in the steel
structure of the bridge and the bridge
went down. They have it inspected.
now; they didn't know it before, but
they know 1t now.
Knew But Ignored Knowledge.
1t was not that they did not know
how to build a great amusement hall
in the great city of the middle west
and put upon the stage Of it an ashes
tos fire-proof curtain and a fame
flume. that six hundred men, women
and children went to a fiery death a
few years ago. 1t was not that they
did not know how, it was that a dis
honest manager, for a paltry dollar,
who might easily have employed the
technical skill requisite to do this
thing right, and who said he had done
1t, didn't do it. 1t was not that they
did not know now to build a great
| pleasure boat and put upon 1t proper
life saving appliances of easy access
| that a whole parish in the metropolis
! of our land went into mourning a few
years gone by. But it was because