The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-06-01
OBLIGATIONS OF
FREE EDUCATION
Bishop SpaIding Reminds Uni
verSity Seniors of Their
Deb so Society.

commencement
University of Utah began last evening.
when Bishop Franklin S. Spalding de-
nvered an inspiring baeealaureate sermon
in the assembly hall. There was large
attendance of graduates, university stu
dents. alumni and their friends
This afternoon President and Mrs J. T.
kinssbury viii receive at their home on
Twelfth East street the alumni gradu-
-r---rrs, former students, members of the
tdculty and board of regents and their
trends. IN the evening the students
pail will take place in the gymnasium
blshop Spalding's address was in part
as follows.
1t is a logical necessity that a re-
pubic should develop the best possible
system of free education. If there is
room for but one in the presidential Of
nee at time, still all the millions are
klngmakers, il they be not kings, and
they must be taught tOaa hOOse a man
who will be worthy of the honor they
bestow upon him. l am speaking tonight
10 those who have tarIfn from the state
all she can give. Thirsreason the state
mas given you an e station Is TO train
you for her service, should she need
you Do you propose 10 pay her or not?
1 believe that upon the answer TO this
question is involved the character of
schools.
1T is not easy to help those who can
not help themselves, and l sometimes feel
that the poor student is the hardest man
or all TO help. lie becomes SO easily
sauperiZed. If ! take a poor boy and
send him 10 college and pay his bills,
III many cases he Will lose his manliness
But such result does not follow when
the state gives 10 the hoy and girl a
free education? Are you sure of that?
If you teachers think first OF
salary. you prospective professional
men. OF fees; you surveyors, OF
wages; you missionaries. Of personal re-
wards. OF what YOU are going to get
not what you will be able TO give, then
you have been pauperiZed, the state has
been training YOU in vain. You are not
ready TO reign, or to choose wisely an
other 10 be king.
How to Pay the Debt.
1--WE will not dwell on that. however,
. but suppose rather that you want to pay
for value received To whom can the
debt be paid? If each and every one of
YOU had been given an education by some
rich man, if you were students of a uni
|. versity founded by some one whose name
was well known and who perhaps has
his day on the school calendar-'FOunder 5
day'-yOu would know TO whom your
thanks were due, and render grateful
recognition. The university which has
given YOU the education you wish TO pay
Tor was not founded in this way, but
rather by that impersOnal thing, the eX-
istence of which We take Tor granted
the state. What the state does for us
grateful that postage stamps cost but >
cents? Who appreciates the mail box
on the corner and the pOSJmRn al the
dOOr2 AS We think of sunshine and rain,
mountains and plans. so do We think OF
state action. But how superficial this is.
What the state does the taxpayer does,
ana the taxpayer is the poor man rather
than the rich man. Working men and
women, who save their earnings and pay
for a little piece of land and build
house. they pay the taxes. True, great
Corporations and rich men pay taxes, but
they pay too often by levying an indirect
tax upon those poorer than themselves,
and with their increased profits meet
state requirements, cut down to a mimi
mum by the influence they exert on leg
islation. There is just one way in which
Su. graduates Of the Utah State uni
Versity, can save your self respect, ana
that means your character, and that is
by rendering, up 10 the limit of your
powers. social service. In that way, and
in that way alone, will you confer bene-
fits as far-reaching as has been the tax
alton which gave you your education.
~ True Social Standard.
Il sometimes think that social ambi-
ton is the dominant ambition of the
American people today. 1t is true that
we seem money mad, but men want
money because il gives them and their
families social prominence. To win So
ciaI recognition in the fashionable set IN
a community, men and women Will today
toady and sell independence. And what
a set Of commonplace and conventional
nonentities they becomei A fashion Is
set by rich idlers. and all follow. Could
anything be more out of keeping with
q democracy, founded on the principle
that all men are created equal and that
a mans life is valuable not because OF
what he has but of what he is? How
the jealousies and vanity of the struggle
Tor social celebrity shriVel up noble ideals
Who is to be brave enough 10 stand for
some other standard of worth than big
ugly houses, and costly, ugly clothes?
If there any doubt that the graduates OF
our free schools ought to do il, for those
schools ought to be training schools OF
social equality You know that fCains
in school never depend on the money in
the fathers pocket. You know that the
finest, strongest men and women in your
class did not always wear the most ex-
.pensiVe clothes. You have no excuse If
YOU fail 10 insist by word and act on
the true standards of social worth, and
if YOU do il, il the graduates of state
universities honor genuineness and de-
spfse sham, IL viii not be long before
these very same people, who can now
buy prominence. shall be made to amount
TO something, because they will have to
earn il"