Repository: UIHistories Project: Dedication - Lincoln Hall [PAGE 9]

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It must not be forgotten that the facilities thus provided by the <tate are not primarily or fundamentally for the benefit of the young people who direcftly take advantage of them, but rather for the ultimate benefit of the great masses of the people who cannot come up to the university and who for their participation in the benefits of these great opportunities provided by the commonwealth, must depend upon the good faith and the loyalty of those privileged to Study here, in transmitting the blessings they have enjoyed to the communities whose interests they will serve. Noblesse oblige. That the great president himself after whom this building is named, saw this very clearly, is plain from many of his remarks. He well knew that striking the physical shackles from the limbs of the black bondman was only the fir£t, though necessary Step, toward that true emancipation which comes only when ignorance and superstition have been overcome by enlightenment and reason. That he full well appreciated the importance of higher education to the community, even to those who could not obtain it for themselves in person, is evident from the following quotation taken from a letter written to Dr. John Maclean, President of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) December 27, 1864, after Lincoln had been notified that the trustees of that institution had conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws: "I am most thankful if my labors have seemed to conduct to the preservation of those institutions under which alone we can expecft good government—and in its train, sound learning and the progress of the liberal arts."

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