light of Christianity germinate and develop the college which lends its splendid power to all mankind. It is in the college that the man is trained. He is broadened and widened outside the narrow and cramped limits of self with all his biased opinions and preconceived theories. He is raised, elevated up above the restric tions of creed; above the obligations to party; above the dictations of precedent; above all the mental miasma and noxious fogs which bedazzle and besmirch the mind of man as the pestilential vapors of the swamp poison and destroy his physicial being; above all the clouds of doubt, uncertainty and possibility into the pure light of truth, where with face kissed by the sun of wisdom and with brow laved by the refreshing and invigorating zephyrs of understanding, he may read and interpret, so that all men may know and understand the thoughts of God written in Nature’s law book, and that all mankind may say with one voice as that emi nent scientist Keplar once said, * ‘ Almighty God, I think thy thoughts after thee.! ’ But you say, “ Why laud the college to the sky ? Why praise the college man above all else? Other men have done great deeds.” Isay, “True! True!” But it is the great truths, the great principles, the great precepts of Nature’s laws which the college teaches —these laud the college. It is the grasping, the understanding, the comprehension of these great truths and prin ciples—this lauds the man. Did untrained minds accomplish great deeds? Who will dare mark the achievements of these same minds if aided by education ? So, when you say to me, ‘ ‘ Wonder ful discoveries have been made, great deeds have been wrought, by men who never saw the inside of a college, ’ ’ I say in reply, “Be not deceived! Be not deceived I Show me the gold which is not, by the polishing cloth, made brighter; show me the blade which is not, by the hewing stone, made sharper; show me the eye which is not, by purest light, made keener—aye, show me the man whose intellect the • contact with other minds and with the experiences of generations of minds which have preceded him does not make sharper, keener, and brighter —show me such a one —and I’ll show you a being not of this earth!” But. one more thought and lam done. What do these things mean ? Are they simply vivid and visionary fancies ? Are they but naked skeletons of the imagination, clothed with the gorgeous tapestries of language to please the mind’s eye, perchance, for, a fleeting moment? No! A thousand times, no! They have a The Free' Lance. [February,
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers