Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1884 [PAGE 61]

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65 the more notable nations of Europe, the lesson was drawn that material and commercial prosperity had been developed, and wealth and power increased by those nations, only as they had fostered the sciences, and promoted their application in the practical arts and industries. I recalled to mind the abundant resources of this favored land, rich notably in every natural condition for production of value of whatever kind, requiring only energy and intelligence for its development.: The state has great uses for wide and thorough technical training for the development of all these material interests; that her farmers may know better the secrets of nature, potent in seed time, and while the harvests ripen in the field; that her workmen may curb the powers of nature to become their willing servitors, to will and to do according to their good pleasure; that her seamen may track the watery wastes in safety; that her miners may win the rich treasures that in the ages of a past eternity were hidden for them in the caverns of the earth; that her engineers may cast up highways and make straight the paths for traffic from the center of the continent to the remotest circumference; that all men and all women in city, forest or prairie, in palace or in cottage, may have longer/ life, better health, serener comforts, happier homes and nobler aspirations. Now every man who can appreciate the full significance of these things has also the farther insight which knows that, magnificent as they are, and fully worth all effort and thought, praise and selfdenial, they are yet of matter, material—I had almost said of the earth, earthy. There is yet another element in mankind. There is that spiritual essence that can know all these materials, and their conditions; that can discern their intricate relations; that can wield, guide and control them all, and still stand triumphant over all, their master and their ruler. In this significant but simple fact, that mind is dominant over matter, do we recognize the grander eminence of the intellectual powers of man, those active forces which in the life that is, control and govern all that come within the sphere of their action. Now the greatest nation of to-day is not that which possesses the greatest aggregate of material wealth before suggested, but that which shows on the one hand in the broad intelligence of its people, and on the other in the number and eminence of its more notable men the best and highest development of mind and character. What constitutes a state? Not high raised battlements or labored mound, High wall or moated gate. Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crowned, Not bays and broad armed ports Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride; Not starred and spangled courts, Where low-browed baseness waft perfume to pride. No—Men,—high-minded men, With powers as far above dull brutes endued In forest, brake or den, As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude— These constitute a state! —5