Eliot,
former president of Harvard University, began a campaign of education to
the end that ultimately and soon--before the riches have gone--this
concern for the far future may become fixed in the law and conscious
provision of the people.
I spoke in the last chapter of Hennepin's seeing a savage making sacrifice
to the spirit of the Mississippi, supposed to live under the Falls of St.
Anthony. You will recall the description of the great public university
beside it that represents the sacrifice of the democracy of to-day for the
nation of to-morrow. Instead of the beaver-skin which the poor Indian hung
in the branches of a tree near the falls as his offering, the State has
hung its gift of forty million dollars for the highest training of its
sons and daughters. But there is still, if possible, a nobler aspiration
to put against that primitive background and beside the Indian's beaver-
skin, for the gift is as yet little more than an aspiration.
A few miles back from these same falls there was held in 1910 a convention
of many thousands from all parts of the Union, the President of the United
States and his predecessor among them, assembled under the auspices of the
National Conservation Congress to consider, as they avowed, not alone
their own affairs, not even the good of their children with theirs, but
primarily the welfare of unborn millions as well.
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