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The Courier-Review.
in the pursuance of a journey from Minnesota to New Mexico, and has brought me from the railway station in Lawrence to this place with the expectation that I should give you what he calls the principal address. I am sorry for the other addresses if mine is to be the principal one, but I suppose he knows what he is talking about. I have not stood before an audience for ten years that impressed me exactly as this one does, with one exception, and that was an audience in the city of New Haven, and this audience strikes me very much as a Conneticut audience would.
It is a well known fact in regard to the state of Kansas that we never know what she is going to do next. I felt tolerably encouraged when I got a dispatch from Chancellor Snow, asking me to stop on my way to speak to you, because that indicated good sense on the part of the people of Kansas, and I am not surprised at this exhibition of good sense, for you look like a body of New England people, and I am proud of the people of those states, and therefore expect that it will be as delightful to talk to you as it would to talk to New England people. It is always an encouragement to speak when one feels that one's hearers are in sympathy with the ideas to be presented. It has been my lot to go sometimes where they wanted a course of lectures on science, history, etc., where they gather in the infants at the breast and children of tender years to fill up the benches, and you go in and talk to them on the intricacies of philosophy, on the wonders of electricity, and try to inspire in them some of the joy that comes in acquaintance with the great thoughts in literature, and as you are in the midst of some celebrated thought, you look down at a lot of children, not too entirely washed, and it is not inspiring. You feel that somehow you have not hit the mark. But I am sure it is not like this with you, because if I should happen to sav anything, I know you will see it.
I was very much pleased with the letter read from Mr. Spooner's friend in which he speaks of the old anti-slavery spirit. It recalls an incident in my own life.In 1856 Kansas was in the throes of civil dissension. It was uncertain
whether slavery should exist in the state or not. At this time the New England states were making ready. Conneticut formed a colony, consisting mostly of students from Yale college. It was decided that these men should not come here without the means necessary to preserve their lives. Accordingly it was determined to arm the company with rifles. A meeting was held to discuss the matter in the church in which Henry Ward Beecher was preacher. A young man in the gallery called out, "One rifle from the junior class of Yale college." And the tow-headed fellow who thus called out is now Prof. Tyler of Cornell. Late in the evening I subscribed to that rifle, and that is the way I subscribed to the freedom of Kansas. Just to illustrate the stern spirit of the age, the name of one of the students who subscribed for the rifle was given as H.W.Killum. Henry Beecher remarked that Killum was a good name. That was the spirit in 1856.
When in Kansas last year, and as I came here today, and came up this hill, and looked out over your town, I was impressed with the New England Character which this place has, and in fact the whole state. The homelike character of the houses, the air of contentment and peace, as if Kansas had started out on a career of prosperity, having first of all concluded that happiness does not consist of great wealth, but in contentment. I hope you will hold to your policy.
Edward Everett Hale went from Boston to St. Louis awhile ago to speak upon the occasion of the completion of the public library, to tell them that "Books are to be Read." I do not think that there is anything that needs to be emphasized as much as that does in connection with a library. You are met here today to congratulate one another upon the opening of this library of the University. I am here, not only as an individual, but as a brother, of a State University, to offer my congratulations upon the completion of this library building. The completion of this building means more to the University of Kansas than any other buildon the campus, or any other building that is to be erected on the campus. I want to say that