60
The Courier-Review.
THERE OFTEN comes to college, and generally everyone that comes is, a youngster, the family pride, a premature lad who far excelled his classmates at the district school, and who might have appeared to his flattering friends as the coming man for any position—even a director of the solar system. There is a slight change at college. Things are not the same as they were at home. In the classroom, on the field, and in society he finds a hundred matches and over-matches to contest with him. Defeat comes more often than victory; for he deals with fellows endowed with all the natural ability that he is, and in addition possessing the added strength of those who know aright themselves and are conscious of their defects as well as of their excellencies. The path of the conceited young man through college is indeed thorny. He wounds and bleeds at every turn
by the keen darts of a none too compassionate rivalry. His otherwise abominable conceit is all that prevents him from abandoning college and seeking the more soothing atmosphere of the homestead. But like the stoic Zeno, he remains at his post and grapples in the dark for an education for which he is but undergoing the severe trial of preparation. He must learn the lesson of humility. The dark cloud which hovers over him must be raised before he can make his way to Wisdom's temple. Then he can learn, excel, and perhaps reach his highest ambition. We must pass through this ordeal. The rough knocks of college knock out conceit and knock in sense. It may take the entire four years, yet if the idea that there are many able and competent men in college is deeply implanted, it has paid to enter college.
LITERARY.
Presentation Speech at the Dedication of the Spooner Library.
To establish a government in which every citizen should be the equal of all his fellows, not only in opportunity but also in wealth and station, has been the cherished dream of many of the honest and just and philanthropic men of every age since civilized governments were first instituted upon the earth. In our own country there are many such men, men who regard with grave alarm the vast aggregations of capital which recent years have witnessed, and who look upon the accumulation of large wealth in the hands of individuals or corporations as a serious menace to the liberties of the people.
We may not be the disciples of this school of political economy. Indeed so far from agreeing with this view, it may appear to us that the amassing of great fortunes and their combination for the prosecution of great enterprises, is not only one of the inevitable but one of the desirable results of modern economic conditions, and one of the factors which has contributed most potently to the establishment of our Republic, to the maintenance of its institutions, to the liberty and security of our citizens and to the advancement of our civilization. It is easy to recall the fact that when our heroic grandsires proclaimed that a new nation had been born, they pledged not only their lives and their sacred honors, but their private fortunes also, that the proclamation might be made good. It is easy to remember how, eighty years later, the gathered gold of private fortunes was again poured into the treasury in order that the Union might withstand the terrific shock of civil war. It is easy to remember that many of the most important contributions to our store of knowledge, many of our greatest institutions of learning, many of our noblest charities, would never have