Collegiate education in Colorado

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COLLEGIATE EDUCATION

COLORADO.

Professor T, N. Has keifs Address and Report before the General
Congregational Conference^ jDe?wer, Jan. 20, 1874.

My Brethren : — At your last annual meeting, you were
pleased to make me your Moderator for the current year, and to
appoint me also chairman of a permanent committee on educa-
tion, to ascertain what opportunities there are for founding a
higher institution of learning in Colorado, under Congrega-
tional auspices, such as have originated and sustained many of
the best colleges in the country and are suited still to inspire
the confidence and co-operation of all classes of enlightened
people.

I understood by the debates of Conference and the powers
given to the committee, that we were expected to enter at once
upon the active duties implied by our appointment, and, assisted
by my colleague, (J. A. Cooper, Esq.), and several other gen-
tlemen and brethren, I have made earnest inquiry in different
parts of the Territory, concerning the popular interest in higher
education and the possibilities of establishing in some suitable
place, a College, on an approximate University plan, which
should furnish means of the highest Christian culture to young
people of all classes and both sexes, now and prospectively with-
in our bounds.

These investigations have led to the conviction that, never be-

fore in the Territorial history of our country, have been pre-
sented to any denomination or Conference of Christian men,
stronger iuducements to found such an institution, than are now
offered you, and the immediate importance of which, I think,
cannot be too highly esteemed.

You are, therefore, convened at ray request, to consider these
opportunities and to act upon them according to your convic-
tions and the popular interest to have such a College, as a
means of good to our present population, and an incentive to
the best immigration from older parts of the country, and even
from abroad. We have to act also in view of the intrinsic and
historic importance of education as well as the present and pros-
pective demands of our denomination — of Colorado — of the
country and the world.

It may not be out of place then to spend a short time in con-
sidering together the importance of collegiate and profes-
sional SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES, such SLS the growing wants of
this age and country require ; and then to notice t/ie special de-
mands upon us here now.

The ideas of common and collegiate education, are not new.
There are traces of them in remote antiquity and they are on
trial still in many nations. The ancient Phoenicians, Assyrians,
Egyptians and Jews were reading peoples. The Hebrew com-
monwealth had its great leader learned in all the knowledge of
the Egyptians, and their subsequent captive prophets educated
in the royal college of the Chaldeans. During the disrupture of
the nation they had their noted '' Schools of the Prophets " ;
and when their predicted Messias came, he called around him
"disciples," those who were 'eager to learn, and led them through
a three or four years course of preparation for public life. Af-
ter his death and resurrection, he also called a man educated in
the famous school of Gamaliel to go forth to nations of differ-
ent languages to teach thsm the morals and immortality brought
to light in his gospel.

The end sought by such education was the acquisition of use-
ful discipline, skill and knowledge, which the inspired sages ex-
pressed in the one word, Wisdom. This they regarded as hav-
ing vast influence over moral and civil affairs, and so was highly
esteemed. The oldest known writer on the subject said,

" TJie Price of Wisdom is above Rubies ;' '
And he showed in words of unsurpassed elegance and force its
relations to nature and its origin in God, whom men should seek
out and obey. After having treated of almost every department
of science and philosophy, and in the midst of affliction and
sorrow, even soared away among the stars to tell of " the sweet
influence of the Pleiades " and " The bands of Orion," he says,
" Surely there is a vein for the silver, and a place for gold, where
they find it. The earth bringeth forth bread for man and it
hath also dust of gold ; but where shall Wisdom be found and

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where is the place of understanding ? It cannot be gotten for
gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof; the
gold and the silver cannot equal it, neither shall it be exchanged
for jewels of fine gold. Whence, then, cometh Wisdom? "

"God understandeth the way thereof, and He knoweth the place
thereof; for He looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth un-
der the whole heavens ; to make the weight for the winds ; and
He weigheth the waters by measure ; when He made a decree
for the rain and a way for the lightning of the thunder ; then
'did He see and declare it ; yea. He prepared it and searched it
out ; and unto man He said, ' The Fear of the Lord, that is
Wisdom ; and to Depart from Evil, is Understanding. ' ' '

A few centuries later the Hebrew Monarch, known as ** The
Wise Man," repeated this sentiment, saying "■ The Fear of the
Lord is the beginning of Wisdom" ; and personified his theme
into a thing of life and making earnest appeals to men :

"■ I, Wisdom, dwell with Prudence and impart knowledge of
useful inventions ; I lead in the paths of righteousness, that I
may enrich them that love me. The Lord possessed me in the
beginning, before His works were made. When He prepared
the Heavens I was present, and when He balanced the world I
was there. I was with Him when he made all things and was
His delight, rejoicing daily before Him ; and especially pleased
was I with the habitable parts of the earth, for my delights are
with the sons of men. Therefore, receive my instruction and
not silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold ; for Wisdom
is better than Rubies, and all things that may be desired are not
to be compared unto it."

He further repiesents its utility and power, and the tendency
of men to depreciate and even despise it. " There was a little
city," he says, ''and few men within it ; and there came a great
king and besieged it. Now there was found a poor wise man
and he by his wisdom delivered the city ; yet no man remem-
bered that same poor man. Then said I, Wisdom is better than
strength; nevertheless the poor man's wisdom is despised.
Wisdom is better than weapons of war ; but one sinner (in the
Hebrew a man guilty of ignorant and vicious 7nistakes) *' de-
stroyeth much good." "■ Nevertheless," he adds, '/ the words of
the wise are heard in quiet more than the cry of him that ruleth
among fools."

This contrast between boisterous and vicious ignorance and
unobtrusive beneficent knowledge is very significant, and is often
illustrated in the history of educated men. Martin Luther, the
greatest reformer of the fifteenth century, said to the German
Magistrates, ''The true well-being of a State, its security, its
strength, is to have in it many learned, serious, kind and well-
educated citizens."

The Biblical writers and good men generally agree in consid-
ering this learned and practical wisdom the product of scien-

tific and Christian culture in the careful study of the works and
word of God ; and this covers the whole ground of that colle-
giate and professional training which is sought by the highest in-
stitutions of Christian learning in the land. It is four-fold and
fully developed ; demands a University,

It includes Knowledge of Science and Philosophy, so as to
know God in Nature and apply his wisdom there in every possi-
ble way to benefit the world ; Knowledge of Mankind, so as
to understand their maladies and how to ameliorate them by
moral, medical, legislative and all social means ; Knowledge:
OF Language, through which God reveals his higher laws and
man acquires and imparts useful facts and forms of thought ;
Knowledge of Revealed Religion, by which God reforms so-
ciety and redeems the soul. This combined knowledge is suited
to both sexes and to the whole man, and educates him for useful-
ness, happiness and immortality.

The Historic Value of this Wisdom is seen by examples of
its absence^ its abuse and its use.

Who can tell how much men have lost, by "lack of knowl-
edge," or disclose " the power of darkness ! " Ignorance, as
well as knowledge, is power; and one "ignorant, vicious per-
son," as Solomon says, ''^ destroy e.ih\i\\xQS\gQQidiV' The benighted
savage, for want of Christian education, wastes nearly all the re-
sources and wealth of nature and threatens the peace and safety
of civil society. God walks beside him as he penetrates the
mountain passes, wanders across the plains and along the mar-
gins of the rivers, lakes and oceans, and says to him, " Come, let
us reason together ; " let us make these mountains give up their
glittering wealth, and these plains provide food for famishing
millions of your fellow-men ; let us change the trackless waste
into landscape gardens and happy Christian homes ; let the river
bluffs and bottoms, the borders of the lakes and the ocean shores
all bloom with mingled life and beauty, of nature, art and Chris-
tian civilization, and reach the hand of plenty to the remotest
place of want in all the wide, wide world ; let the winds and the
•waves become our servants and the light and lightning hasten to
obey us; let man kindly co-work with his Maker, and the low-
est human race shall no longer pine and perish for lack of knowl-
edge.

But the sullen savage heeds not and hears not the Holy
One thus always near to help him. He wanders on, a dirty^
dangerous vagabond — a stolid, half-starved savage still — only
for want of that educated Christian wisdom which converts the
wilderness and solitary place into the paradise of God and makes
the desert bud and blossom as the rose. A few Indian tribes
have been transformed by the tireless efforts of educated Chris-
tian men and women, who have written for them their crude
vernacular, and taught them science, civility and Christian vir-
tue ; but the cruel and unreclaimed all still reveal their one great

want. And mark the contrast ! Compare that abject heathen
•with Prof. Hayden, and you have the worth of that colle-
giate course which Oberlin, the professor's alma maier gives.
How wide the space between the sage and savage ! between
the great Agassiz and the abject Ute ! In theni the present and
primeval ages stand up side by side, that we may see the long,
laborious steps that Christian science has through many centuries
struggled up ; lifting prostrate races to such high mental, moral
rank by its excellent utility and force.

Wrong Ideas and Impulses in leading minds have great de-
structive power. The miseries and misfortunes of ignorance are
many, but the mischiefs of bad ruling thoughts and wishes are
immeasurably worse. The art of arms originated in wrong ideas,
and all the wars in all the world began in bad impulses on one
side or on both. When one man dies by rashness on his or others
part, what sad pity lingers there ! But what is that to one bat-
tle field ! to all battle fields in one ! Combine all the scenes of
carnage in one vast onset ; surround the many slaughtered mil-
lions with as many more who have perished in lingering pain in
camp and hospital, and those who have died by plague and pes-
tilence produced by war, and all who have l3een virtually de-
stroyed with demoralization by the rage of excitement and rust
of inactivity ; and over this vast agony and waste of vigorous
and productive life, see gathering in full view and then vanish-
ing forever the material wealth consumed by martial strife ; and
over this dreadful din of all destructive wars in one, hear the
countless sighs and sorrows of the bereft and broken-hearted, the
impoverished and the unpitied, concentrated into one incessant
wail over the miseries of War — that bloody giant child of un-
checked ambition !

The simple thought of empire in Alexander's soul, made him march
through seas of gore to be the sovereign of the world and die at last
of the insane conceit he was a god. The impcrialidea has always had
relentless power, because of corresponding low impulses among
the people — and these could never have been cured except by
Christian education.

This Power of wrong popular Opinions indicates the worth
of an education adequate to enlighten and correct them.
"The professed opinion that slavery was right, brought on our
-late gigantic rebellion, subdued only by the more enlightened
valor and Christian virtue of the North. Even a popular reli-
gious or philosophical development in the wrong direction, is
always to be dreaded. More than two thousand years have the
millions of India been immersed in the stagnant pool of false
opinion ; and the popular mind of China still cherishes their old
false philosophy with an abject devotion that denies even the
.right to desire to be free. Polytheism is a mighty popular op-
pression of multitudes of men, by their malevolent and most de-
ibasing idol gods. In all Pagan lands the light of science is thus

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suppressed by the damp shadows of the pagoda. The power of
nature is overmatched hy false opinion in the public mind.

False Logic is the guardian god-father of false opinion, and.
will never vacate its office except to the power of light and pure
logical discipline. Mohammed and the Popes of Rome rule
their subjects, century after century by the simple fallacy of a.
false minor premise in their popular syllogisms. The Muezzin of
Mohammedan countries declares many times a day, ''There is
no God but God ; and Mohammed is his prophet ; come to
prayer. ' ' The major premise — that Jehovah is God alone — is a
mighty truth that smote down all their idols and did them a
world of good. But the mi7tor premise, that Mohammed is his
only and infallible prophet, is as potential a lie ; and nothing but
Christian light and science can correct that one fallacy of false^
opinion, and make the' Mohamedan millions free.

The sovereign Pontiff's syllogism is '' God in Christ is King
of Kings ; and the Pope of Rome is his infallible vicegerent ;•
therefore all potentates and peoples are morally bound to obey
him." The inaj'or premise htxQ, also, is the mightiest of historic
truths, but the minor is a most fearful falsehood — foreseen and'
foretold by faithful prophets ; and the united knowledge of the
sacred scriptures and sacred science — of revelation and nature —
is necessary to set this boastful fallacy aside and make its injured
subjects free indeed. Teach the Mohammedans and Papists
pure Logic and enlighten their popular opinions on the fallibil-
ity of all their fellov/-men and they will then protest as we,,
against such groundless tyranny,. The majority of men seem
ruled by some sophistry (false-wisdom) which light and logic
must subdue.

False Aims in Life are no less fallacious. There is a very
common kind of ''Worldly-wisdom " evinced by " The men of
this world, who have their portion in this life; " which seems
quite commendable, and has to-day the chief command of
American society. ("The children of this world are wiser in
their way than the children of the light.") But the power of ma-
terial wealth over the popular mind and the passion to possess it,,
and luxuriate in its cumulative and corrupting abundance, is our
greatest popular danger. The Roman Empire was ruined by
the preponderance of material prosperity and the voluptuous
profligacy which that produced ; and our Republic is insecure
without the people have aims far superior to the acquisition of
wealth. Applied science will increase material prosperity, of
course ; but Christian sentiment will set apart the material,
means for mental and moral ends and convert them into wealth:
of more enduring value. It was true Wisdom in our late great
Christian Naturalist (Agassiz), which led him to decline all lu-
crative temptations, with the assertion, '' I caniiot afford to turn
aside from my scientific work for temporaty wealth. " That is false'
wisdom — or worldly wisdom, outwitting itself — which repudiates

Political Economy^ the essential relations of demand and supply,
and ignorantly produces great monetary panics ; so disturbs the
mutual confidence of men as to cause a far-reaching financial
crisis, and even a final crash ! That is Superficial Wisdom of
this worldly sort, which led to the late Congressional ''salary
steal;" which induced the uneducated Oakes Ames to regard
the Credit Mobilier '' a good thing " — with which to victimize
'• many of the best men in Congress " — and the still more igno-
rant Senator Simmons, of Rhode Island, a few years since, to
propose laws in the United States Senate to sanction his own
penitentiary offenses of the legal and moral nature of which he
seemed entirely oblivious. It is self-evident we need more thor-
ough Christian Education in Congress to manage even our
monetary questions, so as to save the indispensible credit of the
country.

''True Wisdom dwells indeed, with Prudence, and finds out
knowledge of useful inventions ; she even leads men in the paths
of righteousness, that she may enrich them" ; but she does this
in such a »'ay as to counteract the dangers of prosperity by a
pure Moral Philosophy, and so ennobles the intelligent Aims of
men that "Wisdom is justified of all her children /"

Historically viewed, this Educated Christian Wisdom is
seen to be of inestimable worth and the world's great growing
and incessant want. Look at its utility.

The Laborious Construction of Language — spoken, writ-
ten, printed, classic, inspired and international speech — has en-
hanced the value of man to man, from age to age, and from
land to land in all the eajth.

The Copernican Discovery of Planetary Motion multi-
plied the worth of this earth to man a thousand-fold, and greatly
improved his moral powers and modes of thought and social in-
tercourse.

The Scientific Use of Magnets made the sea navigable,
multiplied commerce and the means of spreading Christian
knowledge and brotherhood.

The Utility of our Household Calendars consequent up-
on the Astronomer's Wisdom ; the development of nautical sci-
ence leading, with the use of the mariner's compass, to the dis-
covery of America; the natural sciences adapted to agriculture,
mechanics and all practical and fine arts, and giving man al-
most supernatural power over nature — show on every hand the
increasing value of Scientific Wisdom.

In Civil Government the effects of Christian Philosophy
have been no less felicitous. Christian wisdom has been contin-
ually crying without, and saying, " Men should be wise and good
enough to govern themselves." Her philosophy of self-govern-
ment has grown very slowly, but surely, into power.

The huge systems of error that have exhausted the nations
and always been more strongly defended by the ignorance and

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superstitions of the people, than by even the ambitious princes
that oppressed them, have been ultimately put down ; yet not so
much by the might of arms as by the sterling wisdom of a few
educated men in advance of their times. Enlightened Christian
men have " stood like walls of steel ' ' between the oppressors and
the oppressed; with one hand have held back the sceptres of cruel
kings, and with the other have torn away the still more cruel
superstitions of the people and enforced the Savior's golden
rules, whereby oppressors are sure to be dethroned and the op-
pressed go free.

''The gold and silver cannot equal that wisdom" which thus
%*i in many ways, disenthralls men, "making them rich and adding

no sorrow."

The Higher Institutions of Christian Learning have been,
for most part, the origin of these great good gifts. Science,
civilization, Christianity have been cradled and nourished all
along in colleges, professional schools and the best extant in-
stitutions of learning. "iV^/ one of the useful sciences could have
been developed without them / " •

Where were performed the laborious services of the linguist
and lexicographer, clearing out, enlarging, multiplying the
channels of thought for the common people and even for the too
common educational quacks who would exclude the study of
languages from the halls of learning ?

Where were brought to light the secret treasures of Mathe-
matical Science, by which the astronomer computes the relative
motions of the heavenly bodies, and the navigator, engineer and
surveyor, are able to practice their professions ?

In what minds and amidst what facilities have been conceived
and demonstrated the fundamental laws of Natural Philosophy,
Chemistry and Electrology ?

The Holy Ghost indeed honored the acquisition of linguistic
knowledge by the miraculous gift of tongues to the Savior's im-
mediate disciples ; and the Apostles approved of the study of
languages by quoting so freely from the Seventy's translation of
the Hebrew Bible into Greek. Euclid was at the head of the
Mathematical College of Alexandria, when he issued the first
and still standard books of Geometry ; and Claudius Ptolemy
educated in the same place, with the Greek septuagint by his
side, set forth the system of Astronomy by which Christian sci-
ence soon calculated time and even corrected historic data.

Nicholas Copernicus, who developed and corrected the Ptol-
emaean system, was a mathematical professor at Rome and was
a superior linguist and medical scholar. John Kepler, who
further developed and improved the Copernican system and pre-
pared the way for Newton, was educated at the University of
Tubingen, became a successful preacher, and then the half-starved
professor at Gratz and afterwards imperial professor in Bohemia.
He was a deeply pious man and made some of the most marvel-

9

ous and important discoveries in the whole history of science,
and yet he was much of his life, extremely poor. One tribute
to his memory says, ** He fed the souls of men who left his body
staryed."

Sir Isaac Newton was a graduate of Trinity College, Cam-
bridge, and afterwards professor there. His theories of gravi-
tation, his conceptions of the Universe and his comments on the
Bible show that his love of nature was ennobled by his know-
ledge also of supernatural truths.

Sir Humphry Davy, the father of practical Chemistry, went from
a regular course of study to preside over the Pneumatic College
at Bristol, and by his practical scientific discoveries, did more
perhaps than any other man for the mining, medical and agricul-
tural interests of the world. His work on ''Consolations, or
the Last Days of a Philosopher," is the most touching proof of
the Christian harmony of science and salvation ; and his illus-
trious pupil, Michael Faraday, was also a close student and an
earnest Christian man.

Wm. Harvey was a student of Cambridge, England, and Pa-
dua, Italy, and discovered the true theory of the circulation of
the blood when lecturing before the Royal College of Physicians
in London. The value of college discipline to make men earn-
est and persevering in pursuits worthy of their powers, is indi-
cated by his own declarations — "' Devoting myself," he says, "to
discern the use and utility of the movement of the heart in ani-
mals, I found at first the subject so full of difficulties that I
thought for a long time, with Fracastor, that the secret was
known to God alone. Finally, from redoubled care and atten-
tion, by multiplying and varying my experiments, and by com-
paring the various results, I believed I had put my finger on the
truth and commenced unravelling the labyrinth ; I believed I
had seized the correct idea of the movement of the heart and
arteries as well as their true use. From that time I did not cease
to communicate my views either to my friends or the public, in
my academical course."

No less patient and persevering was our own modern Professor,
Samuel Finley Breese Morse, in his application of the prin-
ciples of electrical motion to the Magnetic Telegraph. The
son and grandson of liberally educated men, and himself so ed-
ucated, he was qualified to take Professor Daniel's constant bat-
tery and Dr. Henry's improved electro-magnets, and after five
years' close application, to perfect the plan of transmitting
thought by telegraphic wires. He then applied to Congress
and got the needed encouragement of $30,000, for the first tel-
egraph line in all the world — that from Baltimore to Washing-
ton.

So far as I know, all the great scientific benefactors and dis-
coverers have been either connected with higher institutions of
learning, or have, like Dr. Franklin, taken principles there de-

10

veloped, and applied them. The discoverer of the new world
was not, as some have supposed, an exception. Christopher
Columbus studied the languages and mathematics at the Uni-
versity of Pavia, resided some time at Lisbon as the friend of
the learned Professors there, and inferred the new balancing
hemisphere from their theories and the notions of educated nav-
igators whom he knew.

The Principles of all Civil Progress have arisen not from
the masses, but from the few educated minds that have inspired
them. The people of Europe held to the divine right of
Kings, and Princes held that the people had consequently no
rights but those vested in the will of their rulers ; until the
learned Locke and Sidney stated the fundamental principles of
society so well that the people saw their rights and compelled
their Princes to regard them.

Then came that English revolution of 1688, when a conven-
tion, mostly of educated men, declared the throne of England
vacant, and the people empowered to fill it, and instead of ask-
ing favors f to forbid forever. the infringement of their rights.
Since then, the British crown has been obedient to the popular
will expressed through Parliament, and there has been a contin-
ual increase of popular freedom. Such results were owing
largely to the sentiments of the English Universities of that time.
Yes, the hopes of the English people were aroused and first put
on their feet and panoplied for the war of right against the
v>Tong at Oxford, Cambridge and Westminster, and were
called out and made to conquer, when all the world was most in
want of such examples.

The Foster Fathers of our Republic were the sons of those
Universities. New York, Virginia and all New England had an
incredible number of liberally educated men. Twenty years af-
ter the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth there were residing
in the villages of Massachusetts, an average of one graduate of
an English University to every two hundred people ; and they
were generally engaged in some skilled mental labor, which in-
spired the public mind. Numerous young Colleges, like Har-
vard, Yale and St. Mary's, were soon founded as the result, at
great cost and self-denial by appreciative citizens and wealthy
men; and Cornwallis said, *' Harvard College had hurried on
the American Revolution more than fifty years. ' ' The Hancocks,
Adamses, Warrens, Hamiltons, Jeffersons and Jays, were the
finished scholar?; of such early institutions — and suc/i educated
men made the platforms on which even Washington won his re-
nown and the three departments of the general government
have thus far proceeded.

Our System of Common Schools was originated by the Col-
leges, rather than the Colleges a ripening process from the
schools \ and the order cannot be reversed with safety. It is
true Common Education makes the thorough College and Uni-

11

versity all the more important and indispensible ; but the Uni-
versities must still evolve the most important principles of pri-
mary education, and provide material for even the text-books
used in the schools. To the graduated courses of College study
also is traceable the very gradation of the school-system from
the infant room to the State University ; and the included Ag-
ricultural Academy was originated in the Chemical Laboratory
of the regular College and is still best developed and adminis-
tered there in connection with a complete institution on the
University plan.

The Learned Professions, as they are called, are demanding^
more and more that their members be indeed " Masters of Arts.'"
An Educated Ministry is now an imperative popular demand.
Foreign Missionaries of both sexes must be well-educated. The
Medical Profession is best filled by the graduates of Colleges
who know the origin and composition of the terms and medi-
cines they use. The departme^its of law and legislation demand
higher culture continually ; and no man can now be admitted
to the bar who has not studied well the legal standards and fa-
miliarized the technical Greek and Latin and other foreign terms
he has to use ; nor can a man legislate wisely anywhere who has
not more knowledge than is necessary to practice law. The
great statutists and jurists of the world have nearly all been
highly educated men before they undertook their public work.

Journalism and Electro-telegraphing are calling loudly,,
and incessantly for educated men and women ; and the want
must be world-wide. Those journals that are justly popular, are
generally aided by College culture in the editorial chair.
Scarcely one that is not so assisted, is not regarded as erratic
and in a measure unsafe to lead the public mind. It is the gen-
eral wail of Washington and the thinking world, that our news-
mongers are so many of them uneducated and untrue. Happy
shall it be for America and man, when electro-telegraphy
and this growing rival of even the sacred desk — the Press — shall
be almost entirely controlled by educated, careful Christian
minds. . The press in Colorado is already more extensive and
potential than in many of the older Territories and States.

Agriculture and Mineralogy now call for Collegiate Edu-
cation to surpervise their works and advocate their rights. Edu-
cated farmers have not been uncommon in former times, nor
should they be so now. Ages since such men as Hesiod, Homer,
Zenophon, Virgil, Pliny and Thomas-a-Becket (Arch-Bishop
of Canterbury), wrote, and some even practiced much upon the
^r/ of farming; since then Sir Fitzherbert, Lord Kaimes and
John Loudon (Fellow of the Royal Society) reduced the art to
a most M^^ivX science ; and later still, modern analytical and prac-
tical Chemistry has become its most interesting and useful part.
Also the Agricultural papers of our Republic are among the
most entertaining and im.portant issues of the press. The farm-

12

ers of the country are themselves considering the true nobility
of their class and want learned men to share their calling and
defend their cause. Educated men with educated wives should
and will be more willing to seek this rural useful life where sci-
ence and religion can find their fittest home. Since irrigation is
our necessity, Colorado will have special need of educated agri-
culture in a good God-fearing sense, so using water as not to
waste it, nor provoke to injurious and unchristian litigations.

Our Mining Interests are perhaps the most promising and
important in the world. They even now employ some of the
best educated talent of our times, and will do this more each
succeeding year. Such scholars as Professor Hill have come to
be appreciated in the terms of round cash, and will henceforth
-command and wisely concentrate in Colorado the capital of
millionaires ; and it is for you to say whether Colorado's sons
shall have education suited to this supervision and control, or,
with pick and shovel, serve the superior mental skill imported
from the Colleges of other parts. " The gold and silver are the
Lords," and He wants educated Christian men to call them forth
to take the place of worn out greenbacks brought into use by
the late pro-slavery war.

People of Spanish descent are one-fourth of the populatior^ of
Colorado and a much larger proportion in New Mexico ; and
these are related in spirit and in speech to many millions in
America, North and South. There is no opportunity, perhaps,
on earth, to so unite by education, the interests of the Saxon
.and Castilian races, as we have in this Territory at the present
time — and this has been my highest dream since my conversion
to Christ in early youth. I have longed — still long with grow-
ing zeal, to see the Mexico-Spanish element in North America,
an educated and free people like our own. Their wealthy herds-
men and their peasants too, might have education of the highest,
holiest sort, such as should make them sing like David of God's
diviner care, instead of that ill-balanced culture of the super-
stitious kind that leaves them ill-prepared to grapple with the
great, God-given issues of this age, I hope to see a system of
Hispano-English Common Schools in New Mexico — and Mexico
indeed, where liberal Christian culture shall come up '^a thing
of beauty and a joy forever," the product of our college work.

The Teachers' Profession — that must provide the instru-
ments for this — requires men and women well prepared. Edu-
cators must have education in the science and art of teaching as
seen in higher institutions, and then their skilled mental labor
will be amply paid. There are in Denver several teachers, the
alumni of Universities of note, and nearly all our leading Ter-
ritorial public schools have Principals prepared in Colleges else-
where. We must not depend on immigration for supply ; the
supposition is even suicidal. There are near a hundred thousand
people in Colorado now, with a school population of sixteen

13

thousand strong, increasing annually a hnndred fold, with near
eight thousand children at this hour in school, and many of
them in a graded course, suggestive of the regular curriculum of
College life. Our School buildings are the best and most beau-
tiful we have of any kind, and good enough for Colleges any-
where; and they are an indication of what expenditure the peo-
ple will approve in aid of higher education as soon as it shall
be fairly understood. The people coming here are more and
more those caring for the Christian culture of their sons and
daughters, up to the highest standards of the older States. A
good Christian College v/ould call many more and multiply the
new communities and moral and social wealth of Colorado man-
ifold, which would also increase from year to year the Collegiate
Institution's wealth and worth ; but this plainly requires provision
for the equal privileges of both male and female youth.

The Co-education of the Sexes seems coming into certain
vogue in nearly all the States. The testimony of Presidents Ed-
wards, Angell, Finney, Fairchild, Haven, Magoun and Twom-
bly, cannot be soon successfully gainsaid by those who have
not observed and tried the plan. I was myself some time " Di-
rector of the Female College " in a State Uniuersity, and had at
the same time to do with every male student on the ground, and
having also taught in two Universities of this kind, I know the
co-education plan works well there. The sexes animate each
other to virtue, culture and most vigorous thought. I believe
the discipline of Universities for both sexes and all classes of se-
rious youth is easier and better than that of those for either sex
alone. The ** horrible hazing of Harvard" and the still more
tragic late "initiation" of young Legget — into eternity — at
Cornell, could not occur, I think, in a well managed Christian
College of the co-education kind.

The Christian Element />, however, always essential to true
success. A wealthy irreligious man once said to me "I
should have more comfort in my son now studying at Cornell if
I knew his Professors prayed for him or daily gave the students
moral precepts from the law of God." I do not know how this
is there ; but well I know the precepts of the Bible are suitable
to bless young people anywhere— especially away from home.
Pro Christo etEcclesiae and Lux et Veritas, 2st the mottoes of the best
Universities we have ; and no College should accept a lower aim.
This is a Christian country, and a College cannot well succeed
without the golden rules of Christ. I lay more stress on this be-
cause of the secularizing tendencies in the education of our
times.

State Universities, which cap the climax of the common
schools, are specially liable to suffer this deterioration from the
high standard of Christian faith and morals. As the graduate
of one State University, and professor from another, I grate-
fully appreciate their worth and wish there were just one in ev-

14

€ry State and a " National " one besides, if Congress will ; but
we cannot commit all College culture in the country, or even in
Colorado, to such secularizing and semi-political care.

A Union Christian College — of which I can conceive on a
safe and liberal plan, just suited to this place — would best please
my taste if it could be started and unselfishly sustained by all the
Sects ; but every former effort known to me has been abandoned
by its founders or left without sustaining friends. It ought not
to be so, but it is ! I have tried to unite all interests into one
in Denver, on a plan which I believed you would approve ; but
all the tact I could command only showed that a further trial
would surely fail. Although I have given nothing to the press
till now, one close-communion friend became so full of colle-
giate knowledge all at once, he appeared in two issues of the
press impersonated into a " University " itself, and over the new
soubriquet made more mistakes than an educated man could well
afford to utter or to answer ; and so the matter dropped.

A Congregational College for Colorado, like those founded
and so successful in the East, forever Christian without eccle-
siastical control, comes nearest to that unsectarian ideal which I
most admire and wish to see fulfilled.

The Place in which to Plant a College, is where it prom-
ises the most patronage, prosperity and real College power. It
should be a leading influence in the place, protected against in-
temperance and social vice, and favored with good scenery, air
and sunlight, and somewhat central in the prospective State.
We happily have the best sanitaria of the country, and labora-
tories of nature at our command, and educational work and
wants in sister Territories both North and South. We have
generous offers and invitations from the beautiful capital of
El Paso county, the central and first agricultural one, as officially
reported by the press, and the offered College site of twenty
acres not far from Manitou Springs, Glen Eyrie, and ^' The Gar-
den of the Gods," with seventy acres of unsold lots within
the corporation limits, and $10,000 in cash on most suitable
terms. Proposals full of promise, also from Greeley, a beauti-
ful, thriving and well-watered patronymic town, as well-known
as the noted Hoil\ce, who gave it name, and able to count like
Colorado Springs, a host of hearty and some wealthy friends.
These and other offers, my colleagues will report. If you de-
cide that Colorado needs a College now, and will elect the plan
and place, and Board of Trust, I shall expect soon to see organ-
ized a Preparatory Department in judicious hands, an able Fac-
ulty, and at least one commodious building ready by next Col-
lege year, and the instrumentality that shall seek eastern funds and
faculty securing under-graduates for each College class; this
more likely for next Fall than if we vote to put it off for fifty
years. The enterprise is needed and it will succeed. Bow-
doin, Dartmouth, Yale, Harvard, Williams and Amherst, of

15

New England; Oberlin, of Ohio ; Olivet, of Michigan ; Beloit,
and Ripon, of Wisconsin ; Carleton, of Minnesota ; Iowa, at
Grinnell ;' Oakland, of California ; and Pacific University, of
Oregon — with many other useful institutions for both sexes,
which have arisen under the same auspices, ensure the success of
this.

A man can rear no nobler monument to his memory than Col-
lege Halls, which shall be useful while he lives, and be still a
blessing to the world when he is dead.

The patrons of learning in the East act on the principle of
helping those who help themselves, and Colorado should lead
with liberal figures ; and if we do our part and do it well, we
shall find men of means made glad and good by giving freely,
largely, towards that JVisdom which gold and silver cannot buy
and which cannot be bribed or robbed ! Yes, I shall hope to
see hosts of young people from our younger State ordained of
God, his own high priests of nature, such as the great and good
Agassiz* was, and like him filling places of high praise and
power, and going even to foreign lands, bearing on their brows
the very image of pur mountains grand, and in their hearts the
love of nature, God and truth and man, till at each mention of
their names, the nations shall be proud — and, since we educate
for immortality as well as time, I hope we shall all vote to un-
dertake that Christian culture of our youth which shall be car-
ried forward through eternal years !

*Agassiz died December 14, i37j;,.

After this address and a full discussion. Conference decided
without dissenting vote, to undertake at once the establishment
of a Christian College in Colorado, under Congregational aus-
pices, having a Board of Trust of not less than twelve nor more
than eighteen men, two-thirds of whom must be members of
Evangelical churches. Colorado Springs was also selected as
the most suitable site, and the offers made from that town through
the Educational Committee, were accepted. The following
named gentlemen were subsequently elected as The Board of
Trustees :

Rev. E. p. Wells, Gen. R. A. Cameron,
Rev. J. M. Sturtevant, Jr.^ Dr. W. A. Bell,

Rev. T. N. Haskell, H. W. Austin, Esq.,

Rev. E. B, Tuthill, W. S. Jackson, Esq.,

Rev. Nathan Thompson, E. S. Nettleson, Esq. ,

Rev. T. C. Jerome, Prof. J. E. Ayers,

Rev. R. C. Bristol, J. R. Hanna, Esq.,

Maj. Henry McAllister W. McClintock, Esq.,

Gen. W. J. Palmer. H. B. Heywood, Esq.

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