96 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



or college, and I will grant that the average wealth in the first will be 

 greater than in that of the second, and in the second greater than the 

 third ; so that if yon compare them in respect to health or morality, in 

 respect to religion, in respect to prominence, or in respect to any other 

 good thing on earth you will find similar results. Yes, from the lowest 

 point of view education does pay. 



The history of our country will show how much we owe to college 

 men. I will show you a few things that ought to prove interesting to 

 any intelligent audience, and certainly I am standing before an intel- 

 ligent audience tonight. 



The Declaration of Independence, which is the corner stone of 

 our country, which had as its mission the emancipation of the human 

 race, was written by a college bred man, by a graduate of old William 

 and Mary in Virginia. Of the men that signed that document it would 

 be surprising if you would examine into the question how many had 

 been in college. Take the men who framed the constitution of these 

 United States, how many of them were college bred — you can usually 

 find a list of them in any college library — and then find out where they 

 were educated, and it is astonishing to see how many of the men wha 

 controlled that were college bred. Take the Supreme Court of the 

 United States and you will find that men who have dominated were 

 bred in college. 



It is impossible for us as a nation — equally as impossible as a 

 State — to escape the college bred man ; he has lain his hand on the 

 State and nation and his impress is on our history. 



If yon will take the records of the army and navy you will find 

 that few of our great soldiers of land or sea have ever reached emi- 

 nence without passing first through the U. S. Military Academy at 

 West Point and on through at Annapolis. 



I know full well that people are fond of pointing to George Wash- 

 ington and Abraham Lincoln, both mighty men, as examples of what 

 men can do with little schooling. Yes, they had very little school- 

 ing, neither of them ever rubbed the whitewash off the walls, even 

 with their elbows, but, my friend, that will do you no good, very little 

 good unless the Almighty has made you like George Washington and 

 Abraham Lincoln. The Almighty does sometimes make a man so great 

 that he reaches eminence of no low creation, but those men are few 

 and far between in the history of the world. In new countries men 

 are dependent upon the qualities within them, but as people advance 

 in civilization, opportunity becomes smaller and competition becomes 

 greater; the chances for success in life were much greater in the days 

 of George Washington than in those of Abraham Lincoln, greater in 



