Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - History of the University (Powell) [PAGE 12]

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History University of Illinois

its confidence that the students of this university would do their part in the defense of the country if they were ever called upon to do so. And now in this fiftieth anniversary of the opening of this institution our beloved country finds itself in the midst of the Great War for liberty and democracy against tyranny and autocracy. Its sons, I am rejoiced to say, have fulfilled—nay more than fulfilled—all the expectations of its founders. In every branch of the military and naval service, in every division of the forces for the national defense, on every battle front in Europe and Asia will be found alumni of this institution, of which their Alma Mater may well be proud; for they are living, sacrificing—nay, dying for human freedom and our national independence. At the opening exercises of the university on that 11th day of March, 1868, certain letters were read from distinguished men who had been invited to attend but could not be present. One of the most significant was from the great war governor of Illinois, the honorable Richard Yates, at that time senator from Illinois in the Federal Congress. He writes: "My great hope is that this institution shall prove the crowning achievement of this age among all the grand works in behalf of popular education, which illustrates the splendid history of our state and that to the latest generation our young men shall have cause to bless the wise forethought of the men of this age, who have, amidst gigantic war, not only vindicated the free institutions and ideas of self-government, but also founded this splendid nursery of free men and enlightened patriotism. .An educated man may become unpatriotic, a patriot may become perverted through ignorance, but wisdom and patriotism hand in hand are invincible." His wish was a splendid prophecy which has been splendidly fulfilled. It is only by a patient study of its own history that a people may come to an understanding of what it really is and how it has come to be; only by a careful and detailed study of the process by which it has grown can it gain that just and solemn pride in its past achievements, which is at once the source and inspiration of its future efforts. Ever since Pericles pronounced that wonderful memorial oration over the Athenian soldiers, who had fallen in the early campaigns of the Peloponnesian War, we have all believed with him that no people is worthy to receive the heritage of freedom and culture which its ancestors have