Address at the dedication of “Snow Hall,” State University,
Lawrence, November 16th, 1886.
MR. CHAIRMAN: In the stirring poem read by our Kansas poet, Eugene F.
Ware, at the Quarter-Centennial, it is said:
“States are not great
Except as men may make them.
Men are not great except they do and dare.
But States, like men,
Have destinies that take them—
That bear them on, not knowing why or where.”
The wonderful growth and marvelous prosperity of Kansas, unprecedented
in the history of American States, is not alone due to soil, climate,
resources, and topography. Other States have soils as productive,
climates as healthful, resources more varied, and landscapes as lovely,
as ours. The unexampled development and prosperity of Kansas is the
logical result of her splendid citizenship, and of the intellectual and
moral forces this citizenship has set at work in every township of the
State. Our pioneer settlers laid the foundations of a school house and a
church by the side of their first rude homes, and from that day to this
the idea thus planted has grown and spread and flourished with the
development of the commonwealth. The people of Kansas may have been
parsimonious in some things, but they have never stinted their
expenditures to provide, for all the children of the State, the most
ample educational facilities.
A few days ago the oldest and most richly endowed college in this
country celebrated the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its
foundation. For more than two centuries Harvard has been the pride of
the great State within whose borders it is located, and yet it has never
received, from Massachusetts, as much money as the young State of Kansas
has appropriated, during the past twenty-five years, to establish and
support this University.
The older generations of Kansans, however, hold a divided allegiance.
They love and are proud of the State of their adoption, but memories of
the fields and hills and streams of their birthplace are still singing
in their hearts. The young men and women who come up to Mount Oread to
be equipped for the battle of life, will be, as a rule, natives of the
State, and attached to it by the undivided ties of childhood’s memories
and the pride and faith of maturer years. Generation after generation of
these sons and daughters of Kansas will be inspired, within these walls,
with higher aims, nobler motives, and larger and broader views of human
life and endeavor.
We meet, to-day, to formally celebrate another step in the growth and
progress of the State University—to dedicate this beautiful building,
the home, for all future time, of the Department of Natural History.
Very properly the building is to bear the name of the learned, devoted
and enthusiastic teacher to whose energy, industry and zeal the State is
indebted for the treasures that are gathered within its walls. I
discharge a very pleasant duty, gentlemen of the Board of Regents, when,
in the name of the State, I commit to your keeping this stately edifice.
See that the purpose of the Legislature, in ordering it, is fully
carried out. Study the needs of this great educational institution, and
make them known. Strive to keep it, in all its departments, fully
abreast with the growth and progress of the State. In this endeavor you
can, I am confident, rely on the cordial and generous coöperation of the
intelligent people of Kansas, and the hearty support of their chosen
representatives in the Legislature.