The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1917-02-08
UNIQUE CELEBRATION
LINCOLN'S BIRTHDAY
To Take Place at Cumberland Gap,
Among Typical Mountain Folk.

me greatest CSl6DTdlIOn OF Lincoln 5
birthday in the United States this year
will take place here in the midst of the
rugged Appalachiahs the emancipation
knew as boy.
The mountain folk of Cumberland
Gap, where Virginia, Kentuckey and
Tennessee meet, are going to leaHsthe
country in honoring his memory with a
three day Lincoln Congress, under the
auspices of Lincoln Memorial Uni
versity.
The occasion will mark the tWen-
tieth anniversary of the institution,
and hundreds of notable men and women
will gather amid the fervid hills that
once heard the fervid speeches of Henry
Clay, of Calhoun, and Andrew Jackson.
Governors, Senators, educators, preach
ers, leaders in commerce and in science
will assemble to take new thought Cf
the lessons of LincoIn's life.
1t Is safe to say that many wi o
make the pilgrimage to Cumberlal d
Gap the experience will be like turnir g
back the pages of American history to
that chapte- in ante belIum days during
which the great emancipation was much
like the typical mountain youth Of
today.
The cabins that still dot the noun
tain sides have their Lincolns ard
Hankses to this day, and, while all the
world about them has been stridlng
forwar1-away from rail splitting and
mule driving, from candles and home
spun-they have not kept the pace.
They are isolated, apart from the
world, and though race whose an
cestry can be traced back in unbroken
lines to colonial times, they know less
of the convenienccs of modern civil
ization than the immigrants from
Europe or the negroes of the south.
They still live, as it were, in bygone
age. Their customs, their speech, their
mannerisms are those of the area be-
foreDaniel Boone explored his way west
ward, and their outlook on life is little
changed from the days of Lincon's
boyhood.
Today in this region, many no more
fortunately situated than Lincoln are
emulating his example. These noun
tain boys-embyro Lincolns form the
student body of the Lincoln Memorial
University at Cumberland Gap, where
the great Lincoln birthday celebration
will be held.
Leaders in American affairs will be
brought face to face with a unique en-
deavor, that of enligetening the people
whose forefathers were here before the
Constitution was written before Corn
wallis surrendered at Yorktown, yes,
before Washington was born, Lincoln
Memorial University is Americanizing
Americansiof the Lincoln type.
In announcing the plans for the cele-
bration, DR.. John Wesley Hill, newly
elected chancellor, explained that the
occasion would be the opening gun in
the campaign for million dollar en-
dowment. 1t is planned to acquaint
che entire country with the purpose of
making the institution the greatest
memorial to Lincoln in the land.
General O. o. Howard, of Vermont,
founded the college. He caught his in
SEPARATION from the lips of Lincoln. In
the course of the Civil War, while they
were in conference at the White House.
the President indicated Cumberland
Gap IN the map hanging on the wall,
and spoke in fervent tones of his af-
lection for the mountaineers who made
that region their home.
Gen eral Howard never forgot, and
when in later campaign he found him
self commanding troops in that vicinity,
he had reason to know that Lincoln's
judgment was well founded.
General Howard labored ardently 10
build up the University, and was en-
gagged in this work to the day of his
death. Wonderful progress has been
made IN spite of many obstacles.
Not only from on educational stand
point can the university be regarded as
hope for the future of the noun
tanners of the Cumberland Gap re-
gion, but as a sociological vision it is
even more alluring. Character build
ing is the fundamental upon which the
founder, General Howard, based his
idea. He realized that no mere
academical fact would uphft the
mountain people, but that indepen-
dence, purposetul labor, self support
and the conservation of morals and
health were as necessary as the three
RS.
He took into consideration that the
boy who went back to the mountain
home would carry with him the in
tiuence of the university's teaching, not
only as it related to his mental develop
ment, but his moral standards as well.
Lots of young men and women learn
things in college that are not taught in
text books. But would find scant COM