The citizen. [volume] (Berea, Ky.) 1899-1958, 1917-06-14

hour is q century, a hundred years
and twenty-five years is a quarter
II is for the profound student, and
for all Of us at times, to study his
tory in centuries and milleniums
We go back TO the birth Of Jesus
Christ, 10 the founding Of Rome, Ia
the life Of men on the Nile and the
Euphrates. But there is more
intimate study Of history when
we take shorter and nearer
period. History is an flowing
stream Of which we are ourselves
part; we are making history this
very hour. We may study the his
tory which lies within easy memory
of the living, the history which is
yet in suspense, and for such study
II is well 10 commemorate the quar-
ter OF a century today completed,
the twenty-five years just past,
marked by the administration OF one
man as the head Of Berea College,
an administration which began in
the autumn Of 1892 and completed
its first year in June, 1893.
One striking fact TO our graduates
regarding the year 1892 is that they
were not then living A few may
have been children at their mothers
knee, but the great world was NOV
ing forward wholly without help
from you! You graduates and stu
dents have arrived in a ready made
world Of home and state and school.
You come like the children Of Israel,
Into cities that you builded not,
and OF Vineyards and olive-yards
that We planted not do ye eat"
Berea is one little plot in the
garden Of the Lord. He has a count
less number OF beds in His garden,
all watered by the same rains, warm
ed by the same sun. and swept often
by the same breezes and tornadoes.
Let us look first al some OF this
world weather that Berea has shar-
ed through five and twenty years.
Twenty-Five years ago there were
no automobiles, no telephones, no
aeroplancs. and no submarines; but
men had the same passions, the
same joys and sorrows. and were
neither better nor worse because OF
the vehicles in which they Travelled.
Twenty-Five years ago In Germany
the present Emperor had just de-
posed Bismarck; in England Glad
stone was ''the grand old man; and
in America, Benjamin Harrison and
Grover Cleveland were contending.
William Jennings Bryan had just
reached the House Of Representa-
tives with the hay-seed OF Nebraska
in his hair; Theodore Roosevelt was
an obscure Civil Service Commits
sioner in New York; Woodrow Will
son was an unknown college profess
sor in Princeton; William H. Taft
was q United States Circuit Judge.
Lloyd-George had just been elected
TO Parliament for the first time
from a Welsh district.
Those were the closing years OF
the nineteenth century. Alfred
Tennyson was composing his last
lines, Ruskin was alive although no
longer writing. There were great
painters - Millais, whose Boyhood
of Raleigh we all love; Leighton,
who was working upon his great
pictures OF Rizpah and the Sea Civ
ing up its Dead; and Watts, who
was just bringing out his three
paintings OF Mother Eve. Rudyard
Kipling had written THE Light that
Failed" Darwin had been dead ten
years and John Stewart Mill nine
teen years, but Spencer and Huxley
were in active life, developing a
scientific method more valuable
than any OF their positive conclu-
sions.
In America we were just develop
ing our first multi-millionaires and
learning the names OF Rockefeller
and Carnegie. Our poets-Emerson,
Whittier, Lowell, Longfellow-were
gone and Holmes was just going,
but their influence was starting on
its endless march around the world.
Phillips Brooks was preaching his
last sermons in Boston, Dwight l..
Moody was in the full tide OF his
work on both sides Of the sea. His
was the browning work OF that
nineteenth century. Like Wesley
before he came into a frivolous and
money-grasping age and planted
idealism and aspiration in thousands
OF humble homes. II is the converts
of Wesley and Moody and their de-
scendants who form the bone and
sinew OF the British nation and our
own. Moody had already established
his girls school at Mortified, and
he was lust establishing his Insti-