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" No department of rnind ought to be placed higher than the 

 love of the beautiful. The love of beauty in God must be 

 immense. The love of beauty carries a high moral quality 

 with it. It is a law that we should worship God in beauty. 

 Nowhere was it more powerful than in the temple. We see it 

 in Kevelation. The love of beauty increases in people the idea 

 they have of the truth." 



A true Christian culture should lead our citizens, each to 

 adorn his town, village, street, school-house, and first of all his 

 home. Every tree, flower or shrub in the garden, every tasteful 

 engraving or painting in the house, may add a new link to the 

 golden chain which should ever bind the heart of childhood to 

 the hearth-stone. Let taste brighten the joys of the domestic 

 circle, and help to invest every scene in life with higher signifi- 

 cance arid beauty. The esthetic element as an educational 

 force has been often ignored, and the craving of the juvenile 

 mind for the beautiful rudely repressed. 



Nature is the great educator. Birds, flowers, insects, and 

 all animals are our practical primary teachers. In God's plan, 

 facts and objects as best seen in the country are the earliest 

 and the leading instruments of developing the faculties of the 

 juvenile mind. They cannot be fully trained when cooped up 

 within brick walls, witnessing only city scenes. 



In all our history the country has proved the great school 

 of mind. Here dwell and for wise reasons, here God intended 

 should dwell, the great majority of mankind. The country 

 sends far more than its proportion of gifted men to the great 

 centers of influence. It is thus continually enriching the 

 cities, for towards them are flowing, like their streams, the 

 material and still more the mental treasures which have their 

 origin in the mountain springs and without which the cities 

 would die out. Called officially to visit all the towns of 

 Massachusetts and Connecticut, I have often asked "what emi- 

 nent men have you raised here." Almost every town can give 

 a list of which they are justly proud. A most instructive his- 

 tory would be that which should fitly record the achieve- 

 ments of those who have gone out from these rural districts 

 to fill positions of commanding influence. In the language 

 of Dr. Bushnell : " It is not in the great cities, nor in the con- 



