ing overhead a little banner with the date of their gradua
tion. A thousand men were in these ranks to tell the story
of the struggles that had been gone through. The old college,
built on the then frontiers of New York State at Schenec
tady, was contributed for in the same way that Harvard was con
tributed for—out of the poVerty of pioneers. I have in my
possession a copy of the old subscription list, and it brings tears
to the eyes as I remember that out of the penury of the times
when every day they were liable to the return of the Indians who
had robbed and murdered, and burned their village fite years
before; how that out of the savagery around them they won the
precious gifts—saved from the daily bread that they otherwise
needed.
We think often, young men, with pride and with gratitude, I
hope, of those brave men that gathered around George Washing
ton in the winter at Valley Forge, in the eastern part of your own
State, and went without shoes to their feet or blankets to their
beds that they might win for this country the liberty that we have
—their own and our independence as a Nation. But long before
that, and long after that, the Christian men and women of this
country were contributing, as I have said, out of their poverty,
the means to build colleges. Not mere common schools that their
own children might learn to read—these they also cared for—but
the institutions of higher learning which few of their own chil
dren would ever enter. They knew, though they were yet poor
and living in log cabins, and were still dressed in homespun and
frequently in the skins of the beasts they had killed in the forests
—they, in the midst of all this, knew that the world must have
learning, but above all that Christianity must have learning. I
could tell you many other facts that come to me.
It once happened to me in earlier years to stand amid the
fathers, in one of the Western States, whose college, after having
cost them untold labors and sacrifices, was about to be sold for
debt. Its board of trustees, a body of gray-headed men, talked
over the possibilities of saving this institution of learning which
had already cost them so much. They were awaiting the decision of
one who had declined the position of leadership in the struggle
that must be made. These men bent their heads on the desks be
fore them and wept. It was a college about to go out of exis
tence. I never saw a scene so touching and yet so grand. The
wished for, but reluctant leader' could not stand it. He said to
The Free Lance.
[MARCH,