Here, amid a wide desert of caste and proscription, amid the
heart-hurting slights and jars and vagaries of a deep race-
dislike, lies this green oasis, where hot anger cools, and the
bitterness of disappointment is sweetened by the springs and
breezes of Parnassus; and here men may lie and listen, and learn
of a future fuller than the past, and hear the voice of Time:
"Entbehren sollst du, sollst entbehren."
They made their mistakes, those who planted Fisk and
Howard and Atlanta before the smoke of battle had lifted; they
made their mistakes, but those mistakes were not the things at
which we lately laughed somewhat uproariously. They were
right when they sought to found a new educational system
upon the University: where, forsooth, shall we ground knowl-
edge save on the broadest and deepest knowledge? The roots
of the tree, rather than the leaves, are the sources of its life;
and from the dawn of history, from Academus to Cambridge,
the culture of the University has been the broad foundation-
stone on which is built the kindergarten's A B C.
But these builders did make a mistake in minimizing the
gravity of the problem before them; in thinking it a matter of
years and decades; in therefore building quickly and laying
their foundation carelessly, and lowering the standard of know-
ing, until they had scattered haphazard through the South
some dozen poorly equipped high schools and miscalled them
universities.
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