^0- ■"u>,V' - ° c^/."^ '/^ 't^ C^' K .^vT'. °¥fim- ,A^ Vv>- - - o ^ A ^ ^ ■*v Hq. ''^-^,<;N^ V f '' " " <^^ ^ > 'v^*^ •S' <^ " '' '-^^ .-^' ■/: ,v A ■a. 4 <^ 1^ „ ♦ • o , ■^: V .0- > V A^ f o .^<^ xV V ,v' ,c:;/.^ c^^^ _^v^ -^0^ ;.r-v '.-», ,^^ ' -- ^^^ ^^^ A"- ?^^ •'•'^. ..-i '^^:> 0" '^.. *-T.V.' ^^' ■to / ^V^^.^'"., ^ A^ "-^ .-^ *>. V'" .. -^ "" 'r, ^ '^O A% ijy'- « O ^ ^ .0 ^^ o < -v^' G^ ^^."^ V ,40, .«'•'■' ^> '•' % .*~ A 4."^ c. " a 0^ %. ^ •- -«: A^ .^ ^^ ^-S^ ^^^<. ^ ^O o > .s*^...'^-^.--'"' •^^. ■^.,=?- ^■^^ ^,. ^0- % ^0 K O ^ Ti> .0 ' ^ ^O. ^O A A (^ '> ^^..<^ -■. New E n c la n d Addresses THE PURITAN IN THE SOUTH AN D INTELLECTUAL PATRIOTISM DELIVERED BY LuciAN Lamar Knight AT NA/ALLINGFORD. CONN.. OCTOBER 19. 1916. THE FORMER AT THE UNVEILING OF A GRANITE BOULDER TO Dr. LYMAN HALL. ONE OF THE SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPEND- ENCE FOR GEORGIA. ON THE SITE OF THE OLD PATRIOTS BIRTH-PLACE: THE LATTER AT THE CORNER-STONE LAYING OF THE LYMAN HALL HIGH SCHOOL. A MAGNIFICENT STRUCTURE TO COST. Vy/HEN COMPLETED. $200,000. N E w England Addresses THE PURITAN IN THE SOUTH AN D NTELLECTUAL PATRIOTISM DELIVERED BY LuciAN Lamar Knight AT WALLINGFORD. CONN., OCTOBER 19. 1916. THE FORMER AT THE UNVEILING OF A GRANITE BOULDER TO DR. LYMAN HALL. ONE OF THE SIGNERS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPEND- ENCE FOR GEORGIA. ON THE SITE OF THE OLD PATRIOTS BIRTH-PLACE: THE LATTER AT THE CORNER-STONE LAYING OF THE LYMAN HALL HIGH SCHOOL. A MAGNIFICENT STRUCTURE TO COST. WHEN COMPLETED. $200,000. (^h OFFICIAL PROGRAM LYMAN HALL DAY EXERCISES THURSDAY, OCTOBKH 19, lOUi. WAI.LINGFORD, CONN. HXERCISE8 AT THE UXVEILIXO OF THE BOULDER 11 A. M. Selection Naval ^Militia Band rnvoeation Father Alexander Mitchell Address of AVelcome Rev. Arthur P. Greenleaf Response Governor ]\Iarens E. lloleouib, of Connecticut ^ , , f Frank C. Cook, Jr. I nveihna- of the jMemorial Boulder..-^ ,_ t t> • ^ ^ 1 • • ■ -Mary L. Bramard Presentation of Same to the Town of Wallingford, and Ac- ceptance, Charles Storrs Hall, First Selectman Solo Mrs. Wm. P. Lynch Ol^eial Poem Donald Lines Jacobus Orator of the Day Lucia n Lamai- Knio-ht. of Georgia • Ban(|uet to Guests of Honor in the Armory, 12:30 'Clock. EXERCISES AT THE CORXER STOXE LAYIXG OF THE LYIMAX HALL HIGH SCHOOL 2 P. M. Selection Naval Militia Band Invocation Rev. Arthur P. Greenleaf Song: "The Heavens are Telling" School Children Address Liiciaii Lamar Knight, of Georgia Selection Naval Militia Band Address. .Rev. Charles R. Brown, :Dean of Yale Divinity School Song: "My Own United States '!■' : •. School Children Laying of the Corner Stone : Charles Storrs Hall First Selectman Song: "America" School Children, Accompanied by Naval Militia Band Master of Ceremonies: AVilliam H. Edsall, Esq.. Chairman of the Building Committee. Governor Holcomb was accompanied to Wallingford by lin- famons Putnam Phalanx, acting as an escort. THE PURITAN IN THE SOUTH ''The iiiyt;tie cliurds of meiiiory, stretcliiiig J'roiii every battle-field and patriot-grave to every livino- heart and hearth-stone all over this liroad land will yet swell the fhorus of the Union when ^li^ain touched, as surely they will be, l)y the l>etter aii^^els of our nature.'' — Abraham Lincoln in First Inaugural. ''My countrynu'u, let us know one another, and we will lo\e oni anotiier. ■■ — L. Q. ('. Lamar, in I'hilo^y mi ('har](>s Smnner. ''This hour little nei'ds the loyalty whieli is loyal to one section yet holds the other in enduring suspicion and estrangement. Give us that deep and perfect loyalty which lo\es and trusts Georgia alike with Massachusetts and which endears with equal and patriotic pride every foot of our soil, every State in our Union." — Henry W. Grady, in New Knglaiul Speech. ' Full text of an address delivered at the unveiling of a granite boulder, in the town of Wallingford, Conn., to Dr. Lyrnau Hall, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence for Georgia, on the site of the old patriot's birth-plac^e, October 19, 1916. F( lloic-CifiiCits of N(ir Eiu/luiid, /)(S(t iidanls of (lie Purilaii. L(i(li(.s and (i( iifloiu H : In acoininon grave, beside the Savannah River, and under- neath a singh? shaft of granite, sleep two of the Georgia signers of the Declaration of Independence. One a native of Connecti- ent. the other a native of Virginia, both signed the immortal Scroll of Freedom for an adopted State. Comrades in life. Comrades in death. Comrades in eternity. Puritan and Cava- lier — their ashes have mingled in a union which time cannol annul; while above them soars ;i .sileiil witness, hewn from the heart of Georgia's hills of rock. Hound together by such a tie. ought not Connecticut and Georgia 1o be forever one: and. brushing aside the little oob-Mebs of division which have come between Ihem. ought Ihey not to lay liare Ihe eternal cables which are binding them heart to hetirt and soul to soul, in ;i deatliless union forever.' So lonu- ;is Hall and Walton shall sleep together in a common grave; so long as these twain shall shine together on a deathless scroll — be this the pledge of an everlasting covenant not only between Connecticut and Georgia, but between Puritan and Cavalier, all over our land — "Till the sun grows cold And the stars are old And the leaves of the judgment book unfold. ' ' This, Mr. Chairman, is my text — this the spirit in which I come to you today from my distant home in the South. Cavalier though I be, to the manner born, I am not a stranger within your gates, but a clansman among his kindred. Aye, sir, Joseph is among his brethren. For I, too, am of liberty's chosen seed; Old Glory is my country's flag, and all America is my native land ! On this auspicious day in New England's calendar, Georgia felicitates Connecticut. From the tops of the Blue Ridge moun- tains, she wafts to her sister State a greeting, spiced with the mel- low musk of her Indian summer. It comes from the scented groves of the far-famed Elbertas ; from way-sides sweet with the au- tumn 's lingering perfumes and from hearth-stones bright "with the "\\dnter's kindling fires. It comes from the historic shades of Liberty Hall and from the pillared home of Robert Toombs. It comes from the tender soul of an old Confederate governor, the last upon whom our State will ever look (Governor N. E. Harris) . It comes from the loyal hearts of three millions of people who, "letting the dead past bury its dead," live only in the vital traditions of American valor. It comes from rich and from poor; from the stately man- sions upon the heights and from the humble homes in the hol- lows, whose loving heart-beats answer yours. It comes from towns and villages and hamlets, busy with the bustling activi- ties of trade ; from Atlanta upon the foot-hills, from Macon in the mid-lands, and from Savannah by the sea. It comes from silent cities of the dead, white with the thickening bivouacs of your former foes; and from Federal cemeteries in which your own brave boys are sleeping; from Andersonville's green mounds of glory and from Marietta's guardian monuments. It comes from battle-fields on Avhich the Blue and the Grav no longer gra})ple; from the gory field of the twenty-second of July, from Kennesaw's dizzy eloud-rests, and from Chickamau- ga's hidden breast-works; from Jonesboro and New Hope Church and Fort McAllister. It comes from a past, glorious \nth achievement; from a future, radiant with prophecy ; and from a present, vocal with uncounted factories, whose looms are weaving fabrics for a waiting world. It comes from shop and mart and office, from meadow and forge and (juarry, from lake and stream and ocean front, from highland-peak and from lowland-plain. It comes from harvest-fields, melodious with the black man's tune- ful lays, rippling through golden lanes of yellow corn and over ridges white with cotton's l)illowy snow. It comes from au- tumnal woods, red with the flaming splendors of October, in a land of romance and of song. It comes in a myriad voices, keyed to Lanier's immortal harp, inspired by Grady's gentle spirit, and tuned to an anthem in which the stirring strains of "Dixie" are lost in the music of "My Country, 'tis of Thee." I come to re-open no" wounds of strife. Over all your arch- ing skies and mine, I can read that a better day has dawned, that sectionalism in America is dead forever! We know the storm is over, for while the raven is seen no more, the dove of peace has retui-iH'd to th(> ai-k with an olive-branch of heal- ing in her l)eak ! On the horizon of my home in Georgia looms historic Kennesaw, but its slopes are green, its batteries are silent. The city in which I live, sir, fell a prey in 1864 to the devouring flames; but twenty-five years later it sent Grady to New England with this message: "I wish to say to General Sherman, who is considered an able man in our parts but kind o' careless about fire, that i'l'oin the ashes which he left iLs in 1864 we have built a l)rave and a beautiful city, that somehow we have caught the sunshine into the brick and mortar of our homes and have sheltered therein not one ignoble prejudice or memory." Today not a scar survives. If North and South were ever divided on the field of battle, if Puritan and Cavalier were ever at odds in the history of our government, it Avas long before my cradle days, nor have I inherited from my sire who wore the gray one bitter lingering memento of the struggle. I rejoice that in the fires of battle our differences Avere fused and that out of the erucibh^ of war we have^ emerged a purified na- tion, to whom the God of liumaiiity has entrusted tlie ark of His covenant with man. Born since the hughes sang truce. I have known in all my life, sir, but one flag — the star-spangled banner. To me, that old rain-bow of l)attle is a thing of l)eauty, the fairest emblem ever woven in liberty's loom. The section from which I hail is proud of its traditions, but it cherishes no bitter memories, it nourishes no vain regrets. Our faces are turned to the morn- ing. We rejoice that a new era is at hand, and that, while our people today honor the magnanimity of Gi-ant and the gentle- ness of Lincohi, you of the North are not asliained to applaud with us, the patriotism, the genius, and the nobility of Lee: "Xo more shall the Avar-cry sever Or the winding rivers be red ; You banish our anger forever AVhen you laurel the graves of our dead. Under the sod and the dew Waiting the judgment day — Love and tears for the Blue, Tears and love for the Gray." In all the South, Mr. Chairman — from the Patapsco to the Rio Grande — there is not a right-thinking man amongst us who would crook his finger to summon slavery back. It was not an unmixed evil. But the institution was one out of which the negro reaped far more of benefit than did the white man — it christianized him, it civilized him, it prepared him for citizenship; an institution, albeit, of which the South was not the originator, and Avith respect to which, for climatic and economic reasons, she was less the apologist than the victim. It left us some beautiful memories; but with the old order of things its shackles are all gone, like Othello's occupation. Time's gentle surgery has healed the wounds of war not only on every hill but in every heart. The negro problem still awaits .solution ; but the negro race itself is prospering. De- spite the work of a few mischief-makers amongst them, the num- ber of whom is a bagatelle when referred to the bulk of the popu- lation, there is peace today in the black man's home; content- ment and thrift are tliere, too, newspapers and books. It is no longer a cabin in wliieh he dwells, bnt a cottage, whose curl- ing smoke tells of a happy fireside — the citizen's best anchor and the patriot's holiest inspiration. True to our Anglo-Saxon heritage, the white race of the South has, since Sherman's march to the sea, not only retrieved the disasters of a great war, but made the history of our section a wonder-book of achievement, to which we find no counter- part in the Arabian Nights. It is not the language of a tropical imagination in which I am addressing you. The close of the war found the South prostrate. She had lost her slave property, worth two billions of dollars. She had furnished nine-tenths of the battle-fields of the war. Our whole section was harrowed by the burning plow-shares of battle, and there was still to be endured what to Anglo-Saxons was a Reign of Terror. Today, in spite of the enormities of Reconstruction, ours is the garden- spot of the republic. We have not only paid our own war debt, but our part of the debt contracted to subdue us. Prospero's wand has touched our fields into splendid harvests, multiplied our mills, incrca.sed our schools and colleges, lengthened our highways of commerce, spanned our rivers wath magnificent bridges of steel, and made our breezes vibrant with the glad songs of contented millions. Slavery is no more! The eater- pillar is gone— but out of the chrysalis of a dead South has emerged the butterfly of a ncAV-born Dixie, with the sunbeams of the morning in her eyes and with the tints of the rainbow on her wings. Cotton at eighteen cents a pound is galvanizing every nerve and sinew of business. One of our financiers last year, out of his own private funds, took over the maturing bonds of the State of Georgia, the aggregate value of which was three million, five hundred thousand dollars, in addition to which he gave a million to one of our great universities (Asa G. Candler). In the felicitous phrase of Senator Vance, ''we have renewed our youth at the fountains of industry and found the hills of gold in the energies of an imperishable race." With the implements of peace we are fast retrieving the disasters of the sword. On a hundred fields of high endeavor, the spirit of the New South is at work — brave, resolute, undaunted — reversing the decree of battle and writing' a brave though bloodless se(juel to the Appomattox of the Old. in all the land from -which I come. Mr. Chairman, there is but one sentiment; nor can I better phrase it than in our own gifted Stanton's limpid lines: '* She's up there, Old Glory. Xo tyrant-dealt scars. No blur on her brightness, no slain on her stars; The brave blood of heroes hath ei'im.soned her })ars — She's the Hag of our couiitry forever." Today Time turns magician. With his wand of enchant- ment, he re-animates a dead past, and around us at this hour weaves the illusive spell of history. The occasion which brings us together in this ancient town puts an emj)hasis of patriotism upon American brotherhood. It sounds an age-long truce to battle. It proclaims a gospel of reconciliation. It strengthens the ties of kindred and of kind. Today we are not partisans but patriots; neither Republicans nor J)emocrats, but plain, law-abiding and liberty-loving Americans. The memory of the great man to whom we pay this hour's tribute rebukes all nar- row-minded bigotries. It takes us back to a time when our Union of States was a feeble band of colonies, roused to resistance by the tyranny of England ; Avlien a little company of patriots, fear- less of consequences, met at Philadelphia, in 1776, to sign a scrap of paper, which might have doomed each man of them to an ignominious scaffold. But there was no tremor of nerves and no quaking of knees. To commune with our forefathers of the Revolution, in whose ej'^es a guinea never glistened, to whom liberty was sweeter than life, will make us better citizens, better patriots, better men. It will give us a clearer insight into the principles upon which our republic Avas founded, a deeper reverence for the flag which floats in the air above our heads, a truer conception of our mission to the nations of the earth, and a holier resolve to transmit unimpaired to our children's children the heritage of freedom which our ancestors have bequeathed to us. Putting aside, therefore, every weight which doth so easily beset us, let us gird our loins for an hour's journey; let us away from the feverish luniioil of polities, of trade and of mammon — away from electric lights and telephones and tele- graphs — awa}'^ from moving-i)ictnres and automobiles and iron horses — back to the days of powdered wigs and of knee-buckles ; back to the days when the spinning-wheel stood in the corner, when the old-fashioned crane was suspended in the fire-place, and when the old oaken bucket hung in the well ; back to the days in whose gathering storms the republic's cradle was rocked. There^ — in the old ancestral home of the fathers — let us renew our love of liberty at its fountain-springs. There let us pledge our country's health in the pure eiyslal of its living elixir. There reverently and thoughtfully let us dwell upon the men of old who. in the holy cause of indepentlence, imperiled all ; aye. who di-ank of the bitter waters of Marah that we might baniiuet on the grapes of Eschol and who endured all the pangs of the wilderness that we might inherit the hills of the Promise and tread the courts of the Temple. Happy am 1. sir. in the mission wliieh l)rings me to Walling- ford. Glorions old mother-town of Connecticut! Your founda- tions were laid when the Stuarts were on the throne of England; but. like the (|ueen who loved a Roman, ''age cannot wither you, nor custom stale your infinite variety." Redolent of the by-gone centuries, your very streets are like fragrant aisles in some old cathedral. But your glories are not all of the past. Wedded to the fine art, industrial activities are here centered whose throb- bing pulse-beat is felt throughout our land and whose contribu- tions to the luxury of modern life are synonymous with standard values in every part of Christendom. Ignorant must he be of his country's history who does not feel at home on Connecticut's sacred soil, t\^ho does not thrill to the memories which her very name evokes. Yours wa.s the State which gave to liberty its charter oak, whose colonial government, like an- cient Israel's, was theocratic to the core, Avith the great Jehovah at its head; and whose code of justice, if it made j'ou the jest of shallow brains, won you the love of noble souls, for it told how in all things great and small you looked to God, who ''flings the stars into space from his finger-tips and who tenderly takes note of the sparrow when it falls." According to a recognized historian, eminent in English pol- itics (James Bryce), you framed the first written Constitution in the history of free government. Your so-called "Blue Laws" cannot be found, I am told, upon any statute book today in existence, and must be referred, therefore, to the same era of mythology which produced your wooden nutmegs. It was your Jonathan Trumbull upon whom the great Washington leaned, and who received from the father of his country the familiar soubriquet of "Brother Jonathan," a term of endearment still applied to the typical New Englander. Dear to all Americans is the memory of him whose only regret in dying was that he could lay but one life on his country 's altar. The martyrs who died in the arena at Rome have found in him a kindred spirit, for no whiter soul ever winged its way to the gates of heaven than Nathan Hale's. Has any child in the pub- lic schools of Georgia not heard of him who led the embattled farmers? Nay, not one; nor while the stars shall cluster on the azure field of Old Glory will Americans anywhere forget Israel Putnam. But, sir, when a Georgian speaks to an audience in Connec- ticut, there are peculiar ties to which he must revert. First of all comes he whose name is inscribed on the immortal scroll of freedom ; and not while the memory of Lyman Hall is em- blazoned there can any thorn of malice rankle here. On the coast of Georgia, in 1736, the great Whitefield founded at Beth- esda an asylum for orphans, which today survives, the oldest organized charity in America. He often preached on your commons. Two centuries ago he started a revival among you, the sweet thunders of which are still echoing through your val- leys. Buried at Newburyport, on the coast of Massachusetts, he sleeps beside the restless sea, whose tides while murmuring of what he did to evangelize America still bear him a daily message from his native shores of England. In my college town of Athens we boast an institution which we fondly style the oldest State college in America. It well deserves this designation. I am speaking, sir, of our State university, founded amid the smoke of the Revolution. It was then known as Franklin College, named for your great New 10 Knglaud stalesiuaji and idiilosopher. its iueeptiou came ironi none other than Lyman Hall, who, when govoi-nor of the State, in 1783, reeonnnondcd its establishment. Georgia's State univer- sity, therefore, is itself a nionnnient to thi.s illnstrions son of Wallingford. But the eount is not exhausted. The original charter of Kranklin College was drawn by a native of Connecticut, Abra- ham Baldwin, then a member of the State Legislature, after- wards an American senator. Its first president was a native of Connecticut, Josiah ]\leigs. It.s greatest individual benefac- tor, Joseph E. Brown, our war governor, was a law student at Vale. Over one of its nuiin branches, the Georgia School of Technology, there sat as president a man who, by a singular co- incidence, bore tile name of him whom we today honor, Ly)nan Hall. Beloved of all Georgians is your illustrious fellow-citizen, AVilliam Howard Taft. Familiar to u.s all. in name at least, are many of your ancient towns. AVallingford gave us Lyman Hall. Windsor was the ancestral home of our Ilillyers. Branford was the pioneer seat of our Goulds. From the town of Water- bury came Stephen Upson, to find not only a grave in Georgia's bosom, but an everlasting memorial upon her map. We owe yo\i much. Nor let me forget to remind you, in a vein of good-natured satire, that w^hen Georgia adopted her ordinance of secession in 1861 she borrowed its language from a set of resolutions framed in the famous Hartford Convention of 1813. To what extent the great John C. Calhoun derived his doctrine of nullification from Connecticut Avhile an under- graduate at New Haven, I cannot tell. But Connecticut and Georgia are both done with secession. In the words of the great Ben Hill: "We arc back in the house of our fathers, and we are here to stay, thank God." Before starting upon my pilgrimage to New England, I visited the burial place of the Georgia Signers in the city of Augusta. There, underneath a plain but massive obelisk of granite, sleeps Lyman Hall, the great New England patriot, to honor whom this vast multitude is today assembled. Standing there, with uncovered head, I invoked the God of my country to give me a message to my countrymen — to imbue rae with wisdom for this hour's task. If I shall utter a single sentiment. 11 therefore, which is not meet for my country's altar, let it perish upon my lips, and let him who brings it be forgotten. The Puritan in Georgia. Unique in the history of our State is the place which belongs to Dr. Lyman Hall; unique, I might also add, in the histor}^ of the colonies. Not only was this adopted son of our State one of the great trio of patriots to affix his signature for Georgia to the immortal scroll of independence, but Dr. Hall was for months the only delegate from Georgia in the Continental Congress. Before the rest of the colony was prepared to act on the burning issue of separation from Eng- land, Dr. Hall was sent to Philadelphia by his home people as an accredited delegate from the parish of St. John ; and equipped with these credentials he took his seat in the great hall of patriots. Georgia was the youngest of the English colonies in North America. She was also the last to lower the colonial flag. Her loyalty to England was deep-rooted ; and even when she did sever the tie of allegiance, it was only in response to the cry of blood from the commons of Lexington. Georgia was not less devoted to the cause of freedom than was either Virginia or Connecticut. She cherished the traditions of Runnymede. Her very charter itself committed her to a love of liberty by making her an asylum for indigent but honest prisoners for debt. But there were good reasons for tempering the rash counsels of impatience with the prudent safe-guards of conservatism. She occupied an exposed position on the extreme southern frontier. She needed the protection of the mother-country against two powerful enemies: the Spaniards on the south and the Indians to the north and west. Her territory, though vast in extent, was sparsely settled. Moreover, she had been exceedingly for- tunate in most of her dealings with the English crown. Perhaps of all the original thirteen colonies, she had been the favorite of the mother-country, an affectionate distinction quite often conferred upon the youngest member of the household. She had sprung from an impulse of benevolence. Some of the noblest men in England were among her sponsors, ministers of the gos- pel, viscounts, dukes and earls. Deep interest was felt in her establishment, from a humanitarian standpoint. She had been 12 served by her trustees without fee or eniolmnent ; and gome of these were still in life. ' " -;• the Uluatriona ' / "ler beloved founder, (jtove.- .;zht. who had lill' iv^^ ehair since 1760. was deservedly popular. On a visit to Eng- land, he had been made a baronet, in recognition of his wise counsels, and was destined at the close of a long life to fill an honored grave in England's great cathedral — the only native- born American to be buried in Westminster Abbey. To the foregoing list of reasons may be added still another. Greorgia was christened for the father of the reignum sovereign, whose name was attached to her royal charter. >■ "he Teutonic name of the House of Brunswick, and si. - - :on- strained, in a sense, by her baptismal rites, to uphold the scepter of the Georges. These considerations served to keep her within the loyal lines. Even when twelve of the colonies were repre- sented at Philadelphia, she met without flinching the reproachful gaze of her haughty sisters, and solitary and alone still floated the English colors. But Georgia did not fail to protest. Within the limits of allegiance, she resisted the oppressive measures of Parliament. If there were staunch Tories in the province, there were also stout Whigs; and down in the parish of St. John there was a colony of Puritans — sturdy men of iron, whose ancestors had fought at Marston iloor. under the banners of Cromwell. None too fond of kings at best, the Boston Port Bill had aroused all the slumbering fires of an old feudal hatred. The sufferings of kinsmen in Ifassaehusetts stirred them to unwonted activities. Provoked at Georgia's inertia, they resolved upon independent action .- nor did they stop until they had sent a delegate to rep- resent them singlehanded in the Continental Congress. That man. a Puritan of the Puritans, was Dr. Lvman Hall. Born at Wallingford. Conn.. April 12. 1724. Lyman Hall came upon the scene of action eight years in advance of Wash- ington, his future compatriot fl732). Benjamin Franklin was eighteen years his senior (1706). -John Hancock was thirteen years his junior (1737). He was one year older than James Otis (1725) and two years younger than Samuel Adams (1722). Georgia was not upon the map ; but the town of Wallingford. ancient among the historic centers of New England, was cele- 13 brating its semi-centennial; and when the l)ells of independence began to chime, on the 4th of July, 1776. it was then more than a century old. Eenowned for its great manufacturing es- lablishments, for its splendid system of public schools, and for its beautiful liomes, em})owered amid ancestral shades, Walling- ford's crowning glory is the memory of him who in the firma- ment of li])erty will shin(> with the fixed stars forever. It is an interesting coincidence that in both hemispheres, the name of Wallingford is associated with liberty's cradle. Wall- ingford. Kng., from the environs of whicli must have come some of your pioneer settlers, is less than an hour's journey })y rail from the brook of Ruiniymede. on whose banks King John af- fixed his signature to the Great Charter, which started humanity upon its march to freedom. There is an old tradition which tells us that a certain sword which figured in this eventful drama was forged at Wallingford ; but we cannot vouch for its basis in fact. Wallingford. Conn., gave Lyman Hall to the Declara- tion of Independence, an instrument second only to the Great Charter, among liberty's sacred heir-looms. On this hallowed spot, in infancy, the great patriot was rocked. Upon these scenes his eyes first looked in life. Beside the banks of j^onder stream and through the sylvan stretches of these forest soli- tudes, he often roamed in childhood's golden days. Here, on his cop3^-book at school, he first wrote the familiar name, which was afterwards to blaze on the scroll of liberty's immortals. To the famous oak, in which the charter of his native State w^as hidden, he doubtless nuule many a pious pilgrimage; and from these rambles may have s])i'ung liis uiulying luiti-ecl of oppres- sion, his mortal antipathy to tyrants. Dr. ITall came of devout Puritan stock. His emigrant an- cestor, John Hall — four genei-ations removed — was a passenger on board the good ship "Griffin," which came from England early in the seventeenth century ; and, after tarrying for a while in Boston, he removed to New Haven, but finally settled at Wall- ingford, where descendants of the old pioneer are still living. The immediate forebears of the Signer were John Hall and Mary Street, the latter a grand-daughter of Dr. Samuel Street, the first Congregational minister to settle in the borough. Graduating from Yale College, in 1747, in a class of twenty- eight members, tlie future ]i}itriot began to prepare for the pul- 14 pit under an uncle, the Reverend Samuel Hall; but a prefer- ence for the healing art induced him to renounce theology for medicine, a profession in which he was destined to attain high distinction. There was, however, no relin(iuishment of religion. In ministering to the bodily ills of his fellow-men, he did not relax his zeal for the cure of souls; but rather, like the apostle Luke, he combined both callings in one; and, true to the teach- ings of his New England home, remained an hum])le follower of the gentle doctor of Gencssaret. Horace Greeley's famous nmxim, "Young man, go West," was given at a time wlien the iron horse and the electric tele- graph had begun to extend our empire toward the Rocky Mountains. But at the time of which we speak the sage advice of New England seers was "Young man, go South." The beck- oning Eldorado lay in a different direction. Accordingly, in 1751, with his fair young bride, whose maiden name was Mary Osborne, he turned his face southward. But let us precede him ; and Avhile our yovuig physician, on a frail bark, is slowly making his way from New Haven to Charleston, let us await his arrival in the gentle colony of Oglethorpe, whose challenge he is soon to hurl at the feet of George the Third. On the coast of Georgia, at a point midway between Savan- nah and Darien, in an angle which the old military road here makes with the road to Sunbury, there stands an ancient house of worship, two stories in height, built entirely of wood. It is in a splendid state of preservation ; and, though not the first structure to be erected on this site, it dates back to 1792. For nearly half a century, its organ-keys have been silent, its oracles voiceless, but there is not a fold in the most distant mountains to which its influence has not reached. Here centered in days gone by the famous Midway settlement, a community of Puri- tans, the impress of whose devout lives upon I he history of our State two centuries have attested. It will repay us to glance for a moment at its church rolls. Conspicuous among its early pastors was Dr. Abiel Holmes, the father of your great New England autocrat. Two Signers of the Declaration of Independence worshipped in its pews, Lyman Hall and Button Gwinnett. Two famous soldiers of the Revolu- tion were among its connnunicants, Daniel Stewart and James 15 Screven. In the little burial ground across the road, stands a handsome shaft which the Federal goverinnent has lately erected to conuneniorate these heroes, the former of whom was an ancestor of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt. For a long period of years, the revered Dr. I. S. K. Axson ministered to the congregation. His grand-daughter, Ellen, became in after years the first wife of Woodrow Wilson, afterwards President of the United States. 15ut the rolls are full of shining names. Governors, United States Senators, members of Congress, judges, educators, schol- ars, financiers, diplomats, soldiers, sailors, foreign missionaries, and ministers of the gospel, have sprung from this stock in num- bers equalled by no other community in the State, and perhaps ))y few in the world. Organized upon Congregational lines, it maintained to the last an independent status, though its off- spring was predominantly Presbyterian ; and out of eighty -six ministers of the gospel who have sprnng from this settlement, fifty-one have been Presbyterians, nineteen Baptists, thirteen Methodists, and three Episcopalians. (Stacy's History of the Presbyterian Church in Georgia, p. 94.) Not less than seven counties on the map of Georgia today Commemorate the Midway settlement and its descendants. These are Tjil)erty, Screven, Hall, Gwinnett, Baker, Stewart and Bacon. This was the church to which Dr. Lyman Hall belonged. It welcomed the vilest sinner to its penitential altars, but closed the door of the kingdom of heaven upon Tories. It stood for independence, both in religion and in politics ; and with the on- coming of the Revolution, it became a proverbial hot-bed of AVhig sentiment in Georgia, a thorn in the side of Governor Wright, and a positive menace to the Crown of England. Religion was central to all the activities of the Midway set- tlement; but the patriarchal institution flourished among them like a cedar of Lebanon. We are far enough removed from the asperities of our late Civil War to approach this sul).iect in an academic spirit. It may surprise you to know, in view of Georgia's subsequent record as a slave-holding State, that ours was the only one of the original thirteen colonies from which slavery was pi-oliibil(Hl l)y law. The colony, having been found- ed to help indigent debtors, it was deemed a necessary precau- tion to remove all temptation and to make the emigrant rely 16 upoii Ills own cxciiions. l^'rom IToo to 1741), therei'ore, not a drop of rum and not a sliaekle of servitude were permitted on (Georgia's free soil. Later, the demands of eomi)etition caused these statutes to he abrogated, together with one also which restricted the tenure of lands. Fresh tides of poi)ulatiou at once began to pour into tlu^ province; and it was at tiiis time that, drawn into the south- ward current of immigration, the famous colony of Midway was established. The ancestors of these Puritan settlers came from Dorchestei", England. End)arking for America in 1630, they made a settlement at Dorchester, Mass., 1)ut five years later we find them at Windsor, ('onn. Tn 1695, some of these, again branching out. planted a settlement on the Ashley River, in South Carolina. To the new home place was again applied the ancestral name of Dorchester. Tn the employment of slave-labor, Soutli Carolina at this time led all tlie lower colonies. AVith the thrift, therefore, characteristic of New England's off-spring, these Puritan set- tlers acquired extensive holdings, in a region none too favored, lint ever and anon they looked toward the fertile stretches of hind which lay beyond the Savannah River; and, when the l)arriers to immigration were removed, the journey into Georgia began at once, most of the settlers coming in 1752. Here the colony prospei-ed. AVhite labor could not be profitably used in cultivating the rich alluvial bottoms, chiefly devoted at this time to the culture of rice and indigo, afterwards, to the pro- dnction of sea-island cotton. Consequently, slaves were em- ployed, on an increasing scale of numbers, as fortunes grew and estates multiplied. The settlers at Midway became in time as a class the largest slave-holders in Georgia; and in this part of the State, at the close of the war, there was an overwhelming preponderance of blacks. The ratio was perhaps ten to one, attesting the prosperous conditions of life which here centered during the baronial days of the Old South. The religious wel- fare of the slaves was never neglected. On the Lord's Day, they worshipped with the whites, occupying seats reserved for them in the galleries, access to which was obtained by means of out- side stair-Avays. At the communion sacrament, both the whites and the blacks were served from the same vessels, the whites, of (•oursc, coniMiuning first. Dr. Cliarles C. Jones, Sr.. an eminent 17 divine, the father of Georgia's most distinguished historian, of the same name, consecrated his life to evangelistic work among the negroes in the IMidway settlement. Subsequent to the war, when the whites began to migrate to other parts of Georgia, devotional services in the old church ceased — its eventful career came to an end. Except on com- memorative occasions its doors are seldom opened to the public ; and today, like a grim sentinel, it stands amid the abandoned acres. But the past at least is secure ; and, in the records kept by the historic muse, old Midway church is immortal. It was probably between the years 1752 and 1754 that Dr. Hall settled in Georgia with the Puritan colony from Dor- chester, S. C. The prevailing unhealthiness of the region, es- pecially during the mid-summer months, gave him an ex- cellent opportunity for the exercise of his skill as a practi- tioner of medicine, and established for him both a wide ac- quaintance and a powerful influence among the Puritan set- tlers. Without scintillating brilliancy, he was a man of solid attainments, of vigorous moral and intellectual fibers, and of deep religious convictions. Like rugged old John Knox, of Scotland, he feared not the face of man, nor did he stand in awe of royal scepters. The writers of the period, while em- phasizing these qualities — all characteristic of New England — at the same time bear testimony to his engaging manners, to his generous impulses of heart, and to his quick and tender sympathies. To this descriptive portrayal it may be added that, standing six feet in height, he was veritably a Saul among his contemporaries. From the start, therefore, his pronounced views on public issues made him a leader among the people w'hose oracle he became in things political, wdiile serving them in ways professional. At first Dr. Hall settled upon a small plantation some few miles north of the Midw^ay JNIeeting House, but he later re- moved to Sunbury, a town wdiose streets have long since been obliterated by an ever-green mantle of Bermuda, but which in former times was no mean rival of its sea-port neighbor, the present beautiful metropolis of Savannah. It w^as at Sunbury that Governor Wright located the head of the republican 18 vlisttlToctioii in Georgia. (U'claring that it caiiu' from the Puri- tan settlers, who had iinl)il)(Mi too freely th(> vieions principles of Oliver Cromwell. Here Dr. Hall establislu'd liimself in the renter oL" a popu- h)us community of well-to-do planters. At the onthreak of the Kevolution, he was the most influential man in the parish, one to whom the people instinctively looked for leadership amidst tlie perplexities of an anxious hour. l>utton Gwinnett was also a resident of Sunbury, bnt having eome from England oidy four years before, he was not so potent a factor in shap- ing opinion as Dr. Hall, who had been a resident of the dis- trict for two decades. 'Po quote an eminent historian of our State (Charles C. Jones, -Ir.) : "On the revolutionary altars erected within the MidAvay District were the fires of resistance to the dominion of England earliest kindled ; and of all the patriots of that uncompromising comnuuiity, Lyman Hall ad- . th? foi'^orTeii Ji 'lie jat^ia- ary af man, Ir aiarki^t t "niraiiui point in jiiinan lusroi'^ __ . _____ _^ii an i^ominions s ro I'eeeive ■"hem. nnr a nan t^ vnrii i;ir' _. .A- Of^v ^ausft ' in. Ft .inna ni is^vinufrr iv. : tinier :■.. sni- ; oy a nxtn a> nni He nanons or "v-is nm _ dve part, the .meuvers. i Lon^ess iinrii 1777. " / ■ a rile ..1 riir ^itare. oth Ms residence ar r^unbnry ami his pliinra- ■ ■ ■ M- northern colonies, whers he remained uuiil 1732. He tlieu sseT*' zei"; (ion-stmerion >^t a new lioi i most, 1)1 ;u.s lioir see far ahe-' ._,.. . ..^ -_i - . Grovemnr o nisn'annn diar an Aet wn iirisi-ali.. ssidf' por' deii for:-. .1 ■ .11 .. of these tracts . 21 and Franklin. But the crowning glory of his administration was the impetus Avhieh it gave to education, growing out of which came Franklin College — llie first college in America 1o be supported by Stale aid. Retiring from office at the close of his administration, i)r. Hall reached again for his saddle-bags, but was again called to serve the public as judge of the Inferior Court of Chatham County, an office which he held until his removal to Burke County, in 1790, at which time he settled upon a fine planta- tion at Shell Bluff, on the Savannah River, preparatory to en- gaging in extensive operations as a planter. But his work was done. On October 19, 1790, at the age of sixty-seven years. Dr. Hall breathed his last. He was laid to rest in a brick vault, on a high bluff, overlooking the river. But, in 1848 — more ilian half a century later — his remains were exhumed and taken to Augusta, there to rest beside those of George Walton, under a handsome monument erected by patriotic citizens to the Georgia Signers. Tt stands directly in front of the historic old court house. Etfoi'ts to find the remains of Button Gwin- nett at this time proved unsuccessful ; but the old patriot doubtless reposes in an unmarked grave in the Colonial Ceme- tery at Savannah. Gwinnett was killed in a duel with General Lachlan Mc- intosh, at the outbreak of the Revolution. Dr. Hall Avas one of Gwinnett's executors and a warm personal friend. In- censed by the circumstances connected Avith his colleague's death, he brought the matter to the attention of the State Legislature and charged the officers of the law with neglect in failing to arrest Mcintosh. The latter surrendered himself to the civil authorities and demanded a trial, the result of which was an acquittal.' However, public sentiment was so aroused over the duel, that General Mcintosh, at the sug- gestion of friends, applied to Washington for dutj'^ outside the State, whither he removed until 1781, Avhen he returned to aid in the recapture of Savannah from the British. When the remains of Dr. Hall Avere taken from the old brick vault at Shell Bluff, the marble slab marking the \^ault was sent to the toAvn authorities at Wallingford, Conn., to be Itreserved by the people of his birth-place in memory of an illustrious fellow-toAvnsman, Avho slept in a graA-e far to the 22 South. Dr. Ilall left a widow and one son, both of whom dird in a short time after his own demise. He is, therefore, unrep- resented at the present time by anj^ direct lineal descendants. In 1818, Georgia created three new^ counties, to bear the names of her immortal trio of signers: Lyman Hall, Button Gwinnett, and George Walton; and in numerous other ways she has borne grateful testimony to the fact that she has not forgotten them ; but to Dr. Hall attaches a distinction which belongs only to the apostle Luke among the Christian evan- gelists. He Avill ahvays be knoAvn in Georgia as "The Beloved Physician." Citizens of Wallingford, to you all honor. In an age of sordid selfishness, you have not forgotten the prayer of Kip- ling : "Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet. Lest we forget, lest we forget." Nor have you failed to appreciate the fact that what consti- tutes our republic's real wealth is, in its last analysis, not money but men. For this reason you have met to honor Lyman Hall. More than a century ago, he fell asleep in a distant State, but his name is still musical upon your lips, his memory still fragrant around your firesides. On Independence Day, in 1858, you erected to his memory, in your beautiful city of the dead, a cenotaph to which you attached a faded slab, the gift of Georgia. Today, you remember him again. But the sturdy old patriot deserves his memorial honors. There is no granite in all your mountains firm enough to bespeak his principles ; no snow^ upon your cedared summits white enough to match his patriotism or to furnish him a winding sheet in the pantheon of the ages. This monument will be a glory to your town, an inspiration to your children, beyond the towering piles of your palaces of trade; and, amid the tumult of the republic's Age of Gold, it Avill take you back to the finer things of the republic's Golden Age. Hither let childhood come with its rippling laughter, in the sunny glow^ of life's morning. Let age here tarry, be- neath its wintry locks, to muse at eventide upon its yesterdays. Let youth here pause in its high career to gather promise for 23 its bright tomorrows ; and here let sweethearts catch from each other's eyes the rosy light of love's young drcani. Here toil will find a place of rest, patriotism a fount of in- spiration, and weariness a balm in Gilead. The republic's safety in the years to come will here find its anchor and its guarantee. Stocks and bonds, deeds and mortgages, goods and chattels, lands and tenements are not America's best se- curities. These are but mere baubles, play-things of an hour — evanescent as a rain-bow's hue and brittle as a s})ider's web. Truth only is eternal. Character out-weighs coin. Principles out-last pyramids. Heroism and virtue will survive when Cas- tor and Pollux are blotted from the constellations. Sir, beside the sweet Savannah's Aviiuling waters, in the heart of a city famed for its chivalric people, sleeps all that is mortal of Dr. Lyinau Hall. There, in a fond embrace, Geor- gia folds to her bosom the ashes of her adopted son ; and there, in the tender arms of his foster-mother, beueatli the arching blue of our Southern skies and amid the healing balm of our Southern roses, he will rest in peace until the sweet bugler of the dawn shall bid him rise again. Georgia loved him much. Throughout the ages she will hold him to her heart, and upon liis glorious memory naught but her fondest smiles will ever linger. Upon one of the great counties of our State his name has been conferred. In holy baptismal rites Ave have bestowed it upon our children at the altars of God. Woven into our history, emblazoned upoii our map, written into our family bibles, and sounded in maternal music at our home firesides, it breathes to us an incense more precious than the spikenard of Marj^ and sweeter than the spice of the Orient. Other favorites in the years to eonu' will bask in the sunny smiles of Georgia. But Lyman Hall will not grow less as the brightening list grows longer. Green will his recollection ever be, embalmed in the morning dew of liberty's dawn. His sun will .suffer no eclipse. His fame will wear no fading colors. Laureled in Georgia's love forever, his memory is immortal. Each spring will renew its fragrance A\dth the heather on her hills; each dawn prolong its echoes in the music of her valleys; and, mating itself in adamant with the eternal grandeur of her rocks, it will journey on, a pilgrim of the ages, till ""Wrapt in fire the realms of ether glow And heaven's last thunder shakes tho woi-ld below." INTELLECTUAL PATRIOTISM INTELLECTUAL PAIRIOIISAI On the afternoon of the same day whicli witnessetl the unveiling of tlie granite boulder to Dr. Lyman llall, October 19, 1916, Mr. Knight delivered the address which follows at the corner-stone laying- of the Lyman llall High (school, in the town of Wallinsfoi'd. Fellow-Citizens of Connecticut, Ladies and Gentlemen: The republic's future army of defense is today encamped in its public schools. Here, too, we find our coming captains of iii- ilustry, our adolescent field marshals of finance, and our em- bryonic leaders of business. Knowledge is i)()wer. We no long- er measure giants by cubic inches, nor compute what men are wortli to the world in the paltry mathematics of mammon. The demand of the age is for trained intellects. Even the titanic engines of Avar are today i)ropelled by brain; skill is at a premium, even in the brute empire of force; and, paradox- ical as it may seem, a nation's deadliest thunder-bolts are hurled by its thinkers. Our inheritance from the past and our mission to the future alike forbid that we should imperil the cause of liberty by neg- lecting its rightful and proper safe-guards. Too dearly have we purchased our freedom to leave it unprotected. We must continue, therefore, to look to our battle-ships; but the time is fast coming, in the cyclonic sweep of events, wlieii we will no longer settle our quarrels in the arena of combat. On the battlefields of Europe, the last struggle is taking place today between the effete despotism of the old world and the vigorous young democracy of the new thought. ^Militarism is staggering to its down-fall, drunk with the Avine of its own blood ; and we can see its doom fore-shadowed by the same finger of diety Avhich wrote for Belshazzar upon the walls of Babylon, The rightful monarch, seated upon a throne of char- acter, must wield a scepter of intellect and wear a croAvn of spiritual gems. The true majesty of man has been transferred to the realm of mind; and, even in republican America, we can respond to this sentiment with a lusty sliout : "'Long live the king." 27 Half of the world is today deluged in blood. The mightiest war of history rages beyond the Atlantic. The fateful hour of Armageddon seems to have arrived; and what its outcome will be, or when its carnage will cease, no prophet's eye can foresee. But peace broods today upon America. We are free to pursue our accustomed avocations with none to molest us or to make us afraid. Our vast territory is laved by the waters of two great oceans. Our western prairies feed the Avorld. Our southern cotton-fields clothe its nakedness. Our eastern coal mines warm its fire-sides. But our wealth as a people is not to be found in our abundance; nor did our fathers lay in blood the foundations of this nation that we might minister alone to the material wants of mankind. Ours, sir, is a higher destinj^ — a holier obligation. We are at peace today because of the part which an all-wise God has fitted us to play in a great world-crisis. The last effort of divine providence in behalf of the human race is this govern- ment of ours dedicated to civic righteousness; and, if we fail to make good, the ark of liberty is once more afloat. But we will not fail, sir, if we are true to the principles bequeathed to us by our revolutionary sires, and true to these we will be, come what may. Not since time began has such a slaughter-house of human butchery been built for man's destruction, as the war- ring nations have built in Europe; but, after the conflict is over, humanity, surfeited with the sickening horrors of Avar, will turn to the beckoning angels of peace, and then will come America's opportunity — golden to the core, not only for the expansion of her foreign trade, but to advance the cause of human liberty around the world. "Ill tlu! l)eauly of the lilies. Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in Tlis bosom That transfigures you and me; As He died to make men holy, Let us lire to make them free — AVliilo God is marching on." Stirred by the memories which this day evokes, I recall a scene at the court of Paris. It was shortly after the surren- der at Yorktown. One of the company present, a Frenchman, 28 proposed this toast: "Here's to France, the moon whose re- spleiulent beams diffuse light amid (hirkness. " Next, the English ambassador proposed this toast: ''Here's to England, tlie SUM wliose effulgent rays convert night into day." To both of which, with a ready wit, the American ambassador, jNIr. Franklin, replied: "Here's to America, the young Joshua who commanded both the sun and tiie moon to stand still, and tlicrv obeyed him." What was then only a boast is today a fact. The Russian bear may growl and the British lion may roar and the German bull-dog may bark, but serenely above them all, in a cloudless ether, are poised the out-stretched wings of the American eagle. Our primacy among the nations is explained by a combina- tion of forces which have been at Avork on this continent for three full-rounded centuries. The first of these is religious lib- erty — freedom to worship God according to the dictates of an individual conscience. We have wisely separated between church and State; but since the wilderness days of our humble beginnings we have been essentially a Sabbath-keeping and a God-fearing people, and we have rooted our greatness as a nation in the divim; thunders of Sinai. The war of the Revolution was fought to establish the inherent right of a people to govern themselves. Taxation without representation was obnoxious to English subjects inheriting the traditions of Runnymede and trained in the school of the Great Charter. The second of these forces, therefore, is political liberty, a nat- ural outgrowth of liberty of conscience; and to these must be added still a third, wdiich we will call freedom of intellect, a force represented in this magnificent high school building, the corner-stone of which w-e are here to lay — a force typified in what has ever been the glory of New England, her unique, un- paralleled, and unapproached system of free public schools. Sovereignty in a republic is vested in the people ; and if govern- ment in a republic be wisely administered the sovereign power must be educated. I could wish for my country, therefore, no greater blessing tlmn a repetition in every hamlet throughout our land of what New England has done for the intellectual training of her youth. 29 Sir, it is quite the fashion in certain quarters to belittle the narrow-minded theology of the Calvinists. But when the last word has been spoken it still remains an established fact that the little republic of Geneva, at the foot of the Alps, was the foster-mother of all the modern democracies. Even our own proud bird of the mountains was sired by eagles that nested upon the crags of Switzerland. Calvinism prescribed a rig- orous code, but it carved colossal characters — it moulded men. It rocked the cradle of infant liberty. It colored the current of our nation's history, beginning at its fountain-sources. It entered into the warp and woof of our government. It bore fruit in the Declaration of Independence. Its features were reflected in the frame-Avork of the Federal Constitution. Nor do I fail to detect in the impress of Calvinism upon America the all-pervading influence of the New England fath- ers. The stern faith of the Puritan may not have conduced to a merry heart, like the gentle creed of the Cavalier, but it in- culcated the principles which have made America great. In laying the foundations of his commonwealth, he looked to a city whose builder and maker Avas God. The Puritan may have been an austere type. He may have considered it a violation of the fourth commandment to kiss his wife on the Sabbath Day. but he stood for a robust Christianity ; and his faith in an all- wise providence brought peace to his pillow when he lay down to sleep beneath the stars — surrounded his cabin-home on the frontier with the viewless chariots of Jehovah — sent hini forth unafraid into the perils of the wilderness — made him just in all his dealings with his fellow-men; and, binding him in pray- er to a throne of omnipotence, gave him a giant's strength for all his battles. Doubly equipped Avas the Puritan for his great work of giving an empire to freedom since he not only received his dis- cipline of faith in the school of Calvin, but his training as a soldier in the army of Cromwell. He belonged to a militant church. He knelt to a Lord of Hosts. I can see him now. trudging through the bleak snows of New England, to the rude little house of Avorship, his bible under his left arm, his musket over his right shoulder, lifting upon the frosty air his paean to King Immanuel, but ready at any moment to meet the dusky 30 minious of King Philip. In an argument with Indians, he found the logic of carnal weapons more convincing than the sword of the spirit; and, while he trusted in providence, "he kept his poAvder dry.'' Taught to defend the principles which he loved, he was a hero of faith, in our country's heroic age. Rocked in liberty's cradle, lie despised a fetter, whether it enslaved a body or a soul, whether it bound an ankle or an in- tellect; and, breathing his spirit into our nation's history, he sounded the war-cry of freedom, until slavery on this continent Avas doomed, and Yorktown woke an echo in distant Appomat- tox. New England's part in the making of America is not to be measured by her geographical area. It takes only a pinch of yeast to leaven a pound of bread. Skeptics may scoff at the statement, but our greatness as a people is not unrelated to the fact that when the Puritan landed upon our sliores he began his career in America upon his knees. One does not need to be a prophet, sir, to behold the hand of God in history or to read the workings of diviue providence in human events. It w^as not a mere idle chance, a blind caprice of fate, which thrust the Mayflower out into the lightnings of the wild Atlantic. The same God who sent Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees into Canaan, there to find a soil for his chosen seed, likewise sent the Pilgrim to Plymouth Rock, on a mighty mission for the human race. He brought Avith him to America the seed of humanity's millenial harvest and he looked for wisdom to the guiding hand of the great Jehovah. Scarcely had he risen from his rude altar at Plymouth Rock than he began to plant in the Avilderness three germinal shoots of liberty : the church, the town-hall, the public school. Shakespeare seems to have grasped this three-fold idea of the Puritan when, in Henry YIII, he makes Wolsey say to Cromwell (his servant) : "Let all the ends thou aimst at be thy country's. Thy God's and truth's." These, sir, embody the dynamic forces Avhich have been at work in all the subsequent history of our people : freedom of conscience (God), freedom political (country), freedom intellectual (truth). I do not say that the Puritan alone typ- 31 ified these forces to the exclusion of the Cavalier; but he did stand for them courageously, consistently, uncompromisingly; and today his spirit, reaching down to the very roots of your life and permeating all your air, still calls to New England from every flower upon her breast : ' ' Land where our fathers died Land of the Pilgrim's pride. From every mountain-side Let freedom ring." Having laid the foundations of our government in the fear of God, and having achieved our independence of England witli the sword of Gideon, it was next the problem of our fath- ers, Avhile keeping church and State separate, to diffuse the gospel of knowledge among our people and to educate the sov ereigns w^ho were to govern America. But long before this. New England had been fostering schools. Five years after the settlement of Boston, the foundations of Harvard Uni- versity -were laid. "To the end that learning might not be buried in the graves of the fathers," one of the earliest stat- utes of the General Court of Massachusetts provided that every township of fifty households should "appoint one to teach," and that when a community increased to a hundred fam- ilies it should set up a grammer school. Thus, amid the rude conditions of life which then existed in New England, there was generated a culture which, according to Emerson, "made the elegance of wealth look stupid, which united itself by a natural affinity to the liighest minds of the world, which nour- ished itself on Plato and Dante, Michael Angelo and Milton, and which gave hospitality in this country to the spirit of Coleridge and Wordsworth and to the music of Beethoven, be- fore the genius of these masters had received a hearty welcome in Great Britain." The growth of our country in the coming years, the development of its latent possibilities, the conserva- tion of its vast material resources, in a word, its continued su- premacy among the powers of the globe, depends upon the extent to which we propagate learning and our standard of efficiency in educating the tender minds of the young. Education is the universal solvent. It matters not by what name we call the malady fi-om which we may be suffering as 32 a body politic, it spriugs from some form of ignoranee, the remedy for which is the mind's eiilighteuinent. It matters not iu what sphere of society we move, by what means we seek to earn a livelihood, to \vhat profession, trade or employment we attach ourselves, or from what incentive to exertion our labors spring, we can best attain the goal for which we strive by train- ing oui- brains to think. Sir, we are beset with many diffieiilt pi'obleiiis in tlie section from Mliicli I come. If you of the North wish to help us in solving these problems you can best do so with your tolerant and patient sympathy, remembering that in our section, as in yours, the great bulk of our people are patriotic, intelligent and lionest. anxious only and eager always to do wliat is right. The negro has long been an object of your solicitude. 1 do not ask you to make your ])enefactions to him any less; l)ut along with the black man let me commend to you the child of the moun- taineer in our South(M'n Appalachians. Here, remote from the great centers of population, abides our primitive American stock. These children of the hills are Caucasian to the core — inheritoi's of an unmixed strain of blood, bequeathed to them from sires who marched and slept and fought with yours, in an ever-glorious struggle for independence. In the faces of these boys and girls are stamped the lineaments of gentle birth — the hall-marks of noble ancestral seats; and they are called by naines which are found on the parish registers of the British Isles. Theirs is the old revolutionary blood of Cowpens, of King's Mountain and of Yorktown. Yet isolated from the currents of life in our growing towns, deprived of opportunities which are free to the meanest foreigner's child, adversity has forced them to tread the humble i)aths of the mountain violets ; and, with out-stretched arms, they are plead- ing only for a chance to make good. Our ]>ublic schools cannot reach them ; private philanthropy alone must bear this burden. Poor in worldly goods, few of the mountaineers of Georgia ever owned a slave ; thousands of them, during our Civil War. Avere loyal to the Union. It is not an appeal to charity, therefore, but to patriotism. Men of vision amongst us are preaching conservation — conserva- tion of water-powei's. of woods and of minerals. Let nu^ plead 33 for the seedlets of an Anglo-Saxon civilization. Today, when the scum of Europe, like an Egyptian plague, is over-running our shores, we must safe-guard our native elements of strength ; and to reclaim these helpless little ones from the clutches of ignorance will mean more for the flag, in an hour of danger, than will a hundred battle-ships of iron, thundering upon the seas. The New England school teacher in the South has told us something of Connecticut. Let me today return his visit and tell you something of the great empire State of Dixie. AVe are not Confederates down there — we are not even Democrats to hurt; but we are simon-pure, eighteen-karat, re-constructed, full-statured, whole-hearted, genuine Americans. Over our school liouscs today waves the same flag which floats over yours, and in our hearts the same love of country abides. Georgia, with an area of 59,000 square miles, is the largest State east of the Mississippi River. It was the youngest of the colonies, but the first to establish an asylum for orphans (Whitefield's Orphan House at Bethosda). It was not a colony of jail-birds, but a colony of choice spirits, sifted from the debtor-prisons of London. The British government itself had taken stock in a colossal enterprise known as the South Sea Company, and when this great bubble burst, entailing financial panic throughout Great Britain, the debtor prisons began to swell. Individuals could not be censured for following an ex- ample set them by the government of England ; but the cry of the remorseless creditor was "a settlement or to prison." It was from an impulse of benevolence, of right, and of justice, therefore, that the colony of Georgia was established. Its founder was the great Oglethorpe, not only the foremost human- itarian but the first soldier of his age in Europe. Relinquishing a life of ease and a seat in Parliament, to endure for a decade the hardships of a wilderness — extolled in verse by Alexander Pope, eulogized by Edmund Burke, beloved by Samuel John- son, and painted by Joshua Reynolds, he was the most illus- trious Englishman to cross the sea during the whole period of American colonization. Strange as it may sound to New England's ear, Georgia was the only one of the original thirteen colonies from which slavery 34 was fxcludfd l)y statiif*', and t'l-oui wliicli ruiu was likewise do- ban-ed — precautions doenied most salutary in giviiijj: debtors a new start. 1)ut alirogated at length to put Georgia on an equal footing wilii liie oilier colonies. At Bloody ]\rarsli. on St. Simon's Island, was fought a battle in 1742. 1he I'ftect of which, according to Thomas Carlyle, was felt upon all civilization. Says he. '"Tlalf of the world was hidden in embryo under this battle;" and he further adds: "The Yankee nation itself Avas involved, the greatest phenom- enon of these ages," Tt Avas the work of a mere handful of men under Oglethorpe, but it checked the tide of Latin invasion annihilated a powei'ful fleet of Spain, and confirmed America to the Anglo-Saxon. At Savannah, the Wesleys rocked the cradle of infant Meth- odism ; ami, fifty years in advance of Robert Raikes. organized the w'orld's first Sunday-school. Our seat of learning at Athens is the oldest Stalt- university in Amei'ica. We claim for Wesleyan Female College at Macon that it was the first institution in the world to confer a collegi; (l(>grt'e upon a Avoman; and despite the rival claims of Jackson, of Wells, and of Morton, we credit to Dr. Crawford W. Long, of Georgia, the discovery of anesthesia (1842). The first vessel propelled by .steam to cross the Atlantic Ocean sailed from the port of Savannah in 1819; but. at least a generation earlier, crude experiments in steam navigation Avere made on the Savannah River in 1788, in Avhich year the first patent ever issued for a steam-boat Avas issued to Long- street and Briggs by the State of Georgia, one year before her ratification of the Federal Constitution. Our cotton crop this year — A\^orth sixteen cents a pound — w'ill bring us one hundred and tAventy millions of dollars. In the production of peaches Georgia leads all the States of the Union. Our marbles and granites rival in the AA'orld's market the far-famed output of your OAvn Ncav England hills. Is it not superfluous for me, CA'en in Wallingford, to praise the Georgia AA^atermelon ? Our climate, neither chilled by the win- ter's cold nor parched by the summer's heat, is an idyllic poem of tAA'clve stanzas — one for each month — all set to the music of song-birds and tuned to aeolian harps. But I forbear, lest I 35 depopulate Connecticut. Is it any wonder, sir, that when I leave home I find myself humming an old tune? — "The red old hills of Georgia, My heart is on them now; Where fed from golden streamlets, Oconee's waters flow. I love them for the living, The generous, kind and gay. And for the dead who slumber Within their breasts of clay; I love them for the bounty AVhich cheers the social hearth, I love them for their rosy girls, The fairest on the earth. And when my course is ended, No more to toil or rove ; O. may I then beneath those hills Lie close to them I love." Most appropriate is it, Mr. Chairman, that an institution of learning in the town of Wallingford should bear the name of Lyman Hall. This was the birth-place of the great patriot. It Avas here that his eyes were first opened to the light. It is here that his kinsmen still abide ; here that his ancestors lie buried; here, too, that cherished friends, the play-mates of his childhood and the companions of his youth, are sleeping in the dust. It was here, in a modest New England home that the fires of liberty Avere first kindled in his heart; and here, at a desk in the village school, that he learned to write the name which, in after years, was to blaze on the immortal scroll of his coun- try's freedom. He typified all the primal virtues of New Eng- land, but in a pre-eminent degree he was the friend, the cham- pion, the exemplar of an educated intellect. The Univei-.sity of my native State owes its inception to Ly- man Hall. It was Wallingford 's peerless son who recommended its establishment, when governor of the State, in 1783. He did not live to see its doors opened ; but he was ever its warm advo- 36 cate. It is not unmeet, therefore, that an ahimnus of the Uni- versity of Georgia and a kinsman of the revered Walton, his compatriot and his friend, should be your spokesman on this occasion ; and in honoring your glorious son he performs a grateful duty for his alma mater. This temple of learning, Mr. Chairman, not only attests the reverence in which you hold a great name but the emphasis which you place upon the education of American youth. It is not often that a town the size of Wallingford is willing to spend in erecting a high school the sum of money which this magnificent building when completed will represent. All honor to you, therefore, for the splendid example which you have this day set for the to^nis of America to emulate. Long may this building stand — long may it breast the lightning's bolt and watch the ages ebb and flow. If it be ani- mated by Lyman Hall's spirit, it will ever be a nursery of what is finest in American life; it will ever point the youth of New England to the shining ways of honor ; it will ever give us men responsive to freedom 's bugle-call ; nor will America ever lack for volunteers when Hannibal is at the gates. What, sir, are the lessons of Lyman Hall's life, to be remem- bered by the youth of Wallingford, to be pondered by his coun- trymen of both sections for all time to come ? First, his courage. Without fear of consequences, he dared single-handed to repre- sent a lone parish in the Continental Congress, and later to sign the great Charter of Freedom. But, while he feared not man, he feared God; and, while he loved not the mammon of un- righteousness, he loved the courts of liberty, and is today num- bered among liberty's immortals. He cherished no bitterness; for like Ben Adham. whose name led all the rest, he loved his fellow-man. Rising up from the ground about us, there comes to us today a voice, clothed in the gentle accents of the seer of Patmos. and it says to us: "My countrymen. North and South, love one another — even as in the old days, be ye one." Away with sectional estrangement. Down with the usurp- ing Richard. Let us dethrone tlie old Plantagenet. Here, on this spot, where the cradle of Lyman Hall was rocked, let us rededicate ourselves to patriotism ; let us hand in hand march Hown the future, our glories interlocked, like the roses of 37 England. Forgetting the issues which divide lis in this presi- dential year, let ns here and now, in a patriotic love-feast, proclaim the essential unity of the American people; let us clasp hands across the bloody chasm; let us bury in the grave of oblivion every darling trophy which i)erpetuates estrange- ment ; let us blast Avith the fires of Etna every prejudice which brethren cannot harbor; and let us water with the dews of Zion every sentiment of patriotism which will make us love each other more and more, and our country best of all. I come, sir, in the spirit of the great Lamar who, at Sum- ner's bier, exclaimed: "My countrymen, let us know one another and we will love one another." I come in the spirit of the immortal Grady who, at Plymouth Rock, entreated: "This hour little needs the loyalty which is loyal to one section, yet holds the other in enduring suspicion and estrangement.'' T come in the spirit of the martyred Lincoln, whose words of prophecy still I'ing like l)ells. hammered out of the pure ore of his OAvn golden heart: "The mystic chords of memory, stretch- ing from every battlefield tiiid patriot-grave to evci-y living heart and hearth-stone all ovei- our land, will yet swfll the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely lliey will be, by the better angels of our nature." Invoking the spirit of seventy- six, let the watch-word of our national life be the motto of D'Arl- agnan : "All for one and one for all." Like the sisters of Bethany whom the Master loved, let Georgia and Connecticut, in all tin' years to come, reflect the kindred features of one common familj^ vying with each other only in love's sweet ministries. Descendants of the Puritan, sons and daughters of New- England, today I bring you Georgia's love — sweet with the autumn's breath among her hills and melloAv with the old-time fragrance of the long ago. May I not take her yours in return ? Then let our parting word be "Mizpeh." In the heart of my native town stands a monument erected by a nation's gratitude to one of Georgia's gifted sons. Around its base, like ocean billows, the surging waves of commerce break, while silently, upon its head, the silken sun-beams of old Dixie fall. Fronting the east, it reflects from its massive bronze the light of a better day which is dawning all over our land, to tell of the golden fruition of his work, the happy ful- VV :. 38 fihnent ol' his dreaiii. Deep-cut into its pedestal of granite is inscribed this sentiment — "and Avhen he died he was literally loving a nation into peace.'' On his return to us, from his mission to you, twenty-seven years ago, he fell asleep. Stand- ing in the shadow of Grady's monument, let us liear again the sweet bugle notes of his message to New England. Then, be- taking ourselves to Pljaiiouth Rock, let us there, at the landing- place of the Pilgrim, erase Mason and Dixon's line from the map; let us put North and South behind us in every sense wliicli means discord and division; let us relegate Cavalier and Puritan to the departed shades of history; and, remembering only our common birth-right in an ever-glorious Revolution, let this be our choral anthem: "A Union of lakes and a Union of lands A Union of States none can sever; A Union of hearts and a Union of hands And the flaer of our Union forever." 39 3477-237 Lot-K -> IP!* ^^' ^^ A .^'\ ^^ ..<^^' ^^^ •^^ A O ^.^.s^ G^ 4 o^ 1? I'CJ. oWJ^^W- .0 A o V '^i-v A ^^-^^^ <0 v*. " -i O^ ■"-^ A"^ -^^ o " ° « '*. ,^" > V-^ V .f 0- .-^ > .0 .^ /Jv^ A- .-,V^ .0^ .>^-v. >. ■^ .■*?' \''' ^0- 0^^ ..,.v <^ ^ .^:4r% ^^f 0^ : ■ >, .i>^ ";^ "ij"' .S' * r' ^^/ V' V ^. ^^^■^^. , o ' ^0- %. .ip' -^o. .0 ^ ^ y^^ ^o o V > rft ,v ■'^^y^