rs7T~-^ 
 
 Collegiate Education 
 
 COLORADO. 
 
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 Prof. T. N. HASKELI0|C£71944 
 
 REPORT AND ADDRESS 
 
 m.iiiKi: TiiK 
 
 Genep^^l Congf^gational Confef^nce, 
 
 DENVER. JANUARY 20, 1874. 
 
 DENVER, COLORADO : 
 
 IRIIirNK STKA.M BOOK .'VNU JOB I'RIM1.N(; HOIM . 
 • '874- 
 
SOiWCE IWKNOWN 
 
 OFC 2 3 1944 
 
FROF. T. N. IIASKKLL IN GREELEY. 
 
 On Friil.ij evenia-^, a large audience 
 af«!»(»nihleil in B:«rniim Hull to l^nr Prof. T. N. 
 H.aeke!!, of t»en»er. iI'dicus* fhe poiilical ftit"- 
 iiMtion. 'i'lic fKlilrofs occnpied two hours in 
 di'livery, nii'l wns listeneil to wirh intense in- 
 teicsl fioni lieginnin'^ to cmt, antT il is ppoken 
 of hy many ^»s llie fiiipst poliJica) discourse t» 
 uhicli tlicy liuvc over lislencil.^ '^^ */ 
 
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 COLLEGIATE EDUCATION 
 
 IN 
 
 COLORADO. 
 
 Professor T. JV. Haskeirs AddreMand Report before the General 
 Congregational Conference, Denver, /an. 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 &nd 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 as the growing wants of 
 this age and country require ; and then to notice the 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 riding peoples. The Hebrew com- 
 monwealth had its great leaJft 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, artd 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 them 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 aifairs, and so was highly 
 esteemed. The oldest known writer on the subject said, 
 
 " 7^(? Price of Wisdom is above Rubies ;^ ' 
 And he showed in words of unsurpassed ele^nce 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 
 
•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 
 <lid 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 
 iiseful 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 M'as 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 aiid 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 tnistakes') " 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 tl\e product of scien- 
 
4 
 
 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, \\.% 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, "^(?j-//-^j);<?/^ much good !" The benighted 
 savage, for want of Christia-n 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 ta 
 obey us; let man kindly co-work with his M^ker, 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 edticated 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 
 ^vith Prof. Hayden, and you have the worth of that colle- 
 giate course which Oberlin, the professor's alma mater gives. 
 How wide the space between the sage and savage ! between 
 the great Agassiz and the abject Ute ! In them 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 been 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 ^vccv^Xt 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 imperial idea 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 ov 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- 
 basing idol gods. In all Pagan lands the light of science is thus 
 
6 
 
 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 talse 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 minor 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 major premise htre, 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 fellow-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 iij 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 cannot afford to turn 
 aside from my scientific work for temporary wealth. ' ' That is false 
 wisdom — or worldly wisdom, outwitting itself — Avhich 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 " salafry 
 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 AVisdom 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 way as to counteract the dangers of prosperity by a 
 pure Aforal 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 oy Language — -spoken, writ- 
 ten, printed, classic, inspired and international speech — has en- 
 lianced the value of man to man, from age to age, and from 
 land to land in all the earth. ^ 
 
 The Copernican Discovery of Planetary tciotion 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 
 
8 
 
 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 
 min have "stood like walls of steel " between the oppresscJts 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 
 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. "iVJ?/ one of the tiseful sciences could have 
 bee?i 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 Avere 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 Ale to practice their professions ? 
 
 In what minas 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 irhproved 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 afterv/ards 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 
 starved." 
 
 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 eafti- 
 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 clue 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 
 CoLUMBys 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, 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 
 wrong at Oxford, Cambridge and Westminster, and were 
 called out and made to conquer, when all the world was most in 
 want of such e^camples. 
 
 The Foster Fathers of our Republic were the sons of those 
 Universities. *3 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 
 xjere 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 j and Corn wallis said, "Harvard College had hurried on 
 the American Revolution more than fifty years. ' ' The Hancocks, 
 Adamses, Warrens, Hamiltons, Jefifersons and Jays, were the 
 finished scholars of such early institutions — and such 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 t)y 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 Minis/ry 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 departments of law arid legislaiiofi 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 
 <zr/ of farming; since then Sir Fitzherbert, Lord Kaimes and 
 John Loudon (Fellow of the Royal Society) reduced the art to 
 a most useful 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 important 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 
 ib 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 population 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 would 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 is, however, always essential to true 
 suceess. 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 et Ecclesiaezvi^ Luxet Veritas ,2ite. 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 arid 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 Horace, 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 our 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, 1873. 
 
 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. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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