With this constitution as a basis, our country has, for the past century, been a prosperous and happy country. She has increased in population and wealth as no other nation on earth has increased. If she goes on increasing as she has increased, half a century hence she will have two hundred millions of people, and there will be no power on earth to compare with her; for she will not be such as China, Hindoostan, Russia, but a nation of civilized men, helped by steam, electricity and machinery, so that each man can do as much work as a score of Chinese. She could then maintain fleets and armies enough to overawe the remainder of the world. She could make other nations yield to her slightest demand. She could make herself a bully and a nuisance among nations. When the United States becomes such a power as this, if rightly ruled, it may be made a great blessing to the world. If the moral forces, which have made the country what it is, should be lost, national decay would soon rid the earth of the evil, and free other nations from anxiety. North America has been the burial place of other races before ours, and it may yet be the graveyard of our own. If every man will fight every evil he sees, if he lives out man’s allotted time of life, he will be rewarded in seeing his country respected and honored by all other nations as no nation has yet been respected or honored, and in feeling that he has done his part in the great work.
The favorable notices of the Alumni of Trinity are interesting, especially to an old student. This department as a medium of communication between old graduates serves in many instances as an advertising column. All the editors ask of you for this is your subscription. And the Alumnus or any other old student who takes so little interest in the affairs of his own college that he does not subscribe for its publications, I fear has lost his patriotism.
The get-up of THE ARCHIVE is commendable—the carefully prepared articles deserve the attention of every Alumnus—the book reviews are both interesting and instructive, and the exclusion of long, dry articles is admirable.
THE ARCHIVE is not the only thing at Trinity that demands our attention. The reports and circulars issued by President Crowell demonstrate the working of a scholar and a live educator. They are truly inspiring, and every teacher in the State could well afford to read them.