Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1908-12-27
Americas, Ga- Dee. 9th, 1908.
AMERICUs' GREATEST ASSET

The greatest asset Americas will
have in the future is her educated
men and women, her men and women
of culture, refinement, artistic tastes,
broad sympathfes and wide progress
siveness, the men and women who
will give the tone to the social and
intellectual life of the community.
Material prosperity is not enough
for a community. All recognize that.
Stores and factories are essential as
the foundation, but on the foundation
must be built the fairer, loftier, gran
der edifices that make life truly worth
the living Based on material things
alone the progress and prosperity of
a community would, in all likelihood,
be short lived There must be the
development of the inner life, the
higher existence, keeping pace with
the expansion of trade and industry,
if a city is not merely to be sordid
hive of hand workers but little re-
moved from the existence of animals
that feel no needs save those that
arise from a physical body. No well
rounded existence would be possible
under such conditions. A city with
no aspirations beyond those of ma
terial advancement would invite to
it no one whose aims reached be-
yond the feeding of the body and the
piling up of money, the qualification
of life's grossest aims. 1t would be a
city, one might almost say, without
souls.
The promotion of the spiritual and
intellectual sides of men and women
is just as essential today in working
for the advancement of a city as the
promotion of its business interests.
This has long been realized in Am
CIRCUS. The trinity that lies in ev-
cry mans nature is not overlooked in
this fair city. To this is due the
enviable reputation it enjoys as the
home of Christian culture. Its sons
and daughters wherever they have
gone have carried with them the
fruits of rearing in an atmosphere
where trade has not been allowed to
monopolize attention to the exclusion
of the things that broaden and sweeten
and purify and elevate life, that re-
members that man was created in
the image Of his Maker and destined
for something beyond mere groveling
and grubbing for entirely transient
accumu1ations.
Year by year Americas maintains
this honored and cherished record.
Year after year the number of its
boys and girls at college increases,
and the army of those pursuing the
studies of art, and literature, and
music at home broadens and in
cludes those of various degrees of
financial prosperity. On this, fully
as much as upon the richness of its
territory, the soundness of its bust
ness. the brightness of its trade out
look, depends the reputation it enjoys
from one end of the state to the other
as a city offering many advantages
as a home place. 1t is a pleasure
while in other towns and cities to
listen to the complimentary well
deserved are they-paid to Americas,
growing out of the general realization
elsewhere of the conditions that pre-
vail here. Such reputation, wide
spread as it is, is an asset of incalcu-
able value. It is the rarest gem in
the city's diadem, its most precious
possession. May its lustre never
diminish as the city grows in popu-
lation, in business Importance. AS
it feels the pulsations of new in
dustrial life, as it finds itself moving
on toward greater commercial posi-
tion, may it yet cling to the high
ideals of its past, may it's material am
billions be continuously tempered with
the spirit that strives for culture and
all the Christian graces, may its spirit
ual and intellectual progress keep
fully abreast with that rapid expan-
sion we all feel is to come to it in
the more material things an aspiring
community reaches out for.