River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1910-04-28
COL. ROOSEVELT
SPEAKS IN PARIS
Addresses Distinguished Audience
at Ancient University.
"CITIZENSHIP" HIS SUBJECT
of France as Nation and Them
selves as individuals to the World
Reads Them Lecture on SteriIity.

Paris, April 23-Ex-President Roose-
velt today lectured before an audience
at the Sorbonne, that comprised the
greatest gathering of the intellect and
learning of France that has gathered
at this ancient educational seat in
more than century, if ever before.
Long before the time announced for
the beginning of Colonel Roosevelt's
lecture every seat in the great audi
torium was filled, and thousands lined
the walks and streets about the uni
versity. Colonel Roosevelt said:
Foundations of Our Republic.
This was the most famous univer-
sity of medieval Europe at a time
when no one dreamed that there was
a new world to discover. It's services
to the cause of human knowledge al
ready stretched far back in to the
remote past at the time when my fore
fathers, three centuries ago, were
among the sparse bands of traders,
plowmen, wood choppers, and fisher
folk who, in hard struggle with the
iron unfriendliness of the Indian
haunted land, were laying the founda-
lions of what has now become the
giant republic of the west. To con-
Quer continent, to tame the shaggy
roughness of wild nature means grim
warfare; and the generations engaged
in it cannot keep, still less add to,
the stores of garnered wisdom which
were therein, and which are still in
the hands of their brethren who dwell
in the old land. To conquer the
wilderness means to wrest victory
from the same hostile forces with
which mankind struggled in the i'm
memorial infancy of our race. The
primeval conditions must be met by
primeval qualities which are incom-
patible with the retention of much
that has been painfully acquired by
humanity as through the ages it has
striven upward toward civilization.
In conditions so primitive there can
be but primitive culture.
Building the Higher Life.
AS the country grows, its people, who
have won success in SO many lines,
turn back to try to recover the pos
sessions of the mind and the spirit,
which perforce their fathers threw
aside in order better to wage the first
rough battles for the continent their
children inherit. The leaders of
thought and of action grope their way
forward to new life, realizing, some
times dimly, sometimes clear-sighted-
ly, that the life Of material gain,
whether for a nation or an individual,
is OF value only as a foundation, only
as there is added to it the uplift that
comes from devotion to lOftier ideals.
The new life thus sought can in part
be developed afresh from what is
round about in the new world; but
it can be developed in full only by
freely drawing upon the treasure
houses of the old world, upon the
treasures stored in the ancient abodes
of wisdom and learning, such as this
where | speak today.
1t is mistake for any nation merely
to copy another; but it is an even
greater mistake, it is proof of weak
ness in any nation, not to be anxious
to learn from another, and willing and
able to adapt that learning to the new
national conditions and make it fruit
full and productive therein. 1t is for
us of the new world to sit at the feet
of the Gamaliel of the old; then If we
have the right stuff in us, we can show
that Paul, in his turn, can become a
teacher as we'll as scholar.
Today. l shall speak to you on the
subject of Individual citizenship, the
one subject of vital Importance to you,
my hearers, and to me and my coun-
trymen, because you and we are citi-
zens of great democratic republics. A
democratic republic such as each of
ours-an effort to realize in it's full
sense government by, of, and for the
people-represents the most gigantic
of all possible social experiments, the
one fraught with greatest possibilities
alike for good and for evil.
Great Lessons of France.
France has taught many lessons to
other nations; surely one of the most
important is the lesson her whole his
tory teaches, that high artistic and
literary development is compatible
with notable leadership in arms and
statecraft. The brilliant gallantry of
the French soldier has for many CEN
turtles been proverbial, and during
these same centuries at every court in
Europe the free masons of fashion"
have treated the French tongue as
their common speech; while every art
list AID man of letters, and every man
of science able to appreciate that mar
velous instrument of precision, French
prose, has turned towards France for
aid and inspiration. How long the lead
ership in arms and letters has lasted
is curiously illustrated by the fact that
the earliest masterpiece in modern
tongue is the splendid French epic
which tells of Roland's doom and the
vengeance of Charlemagne when the
lords of the Frankish host were
stricken at Roncesvalles.
Need OF Individual Character.
Let those who have, keep, let those
who have not, strive to attain a high
standard of cultivation and scholar
ship. Yet let us remember that these
Man MISSING With Cams