Norfolk High School - Milestone Yearbook (Norfolk, NE)

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THE MILESTONE. 25 already discovered. Every addition to knowledge is an addition to human power. And while the philosophers are discovering new truths millions may be propogated among the people. Diffusion then, rather than discovery, is the duty of our nation. Each one of us with a fitting education is capable of adding something to the sum of human happiness or of subtracting something from the sum of human misery. Many great souls among them there are who may become instruments of turning the coarse of nations as rivers of waters are turned. The whole land must be watered by streams of knowledge. It is not enough to have here and there a beautiful fountain playing in palace gardens, but let it come like the abundant moisture of the clouds upon the thirsty earth. The man who does not obtain, or who does not help others to obtain an education is false to the first duties of American citizenship. In this country education is a duty. Liberty rests on the intelligence of the people. Qualification of voters should be as great as the qualification of governors, and come first in the natural order. How can we expect the fabric of our government to stand if vicious materials are daily wrought into its frame work? Education and knowledge, the power to think and enjoy the thoughts of others, have long since transformed a cottage into a palace. In the earliest history of man this impulse began to make noble all who bowed to it. It has ornamented whatever it has touched, and what it has always done it will always do. It displaces nothing of life’s good, but many of its evils. It destroys idleness. It plucks the charm from vice. It quenches the thirst for riches. It brings us nearer to all times and nations and binds us by tender ties to a noble living and a noble death.

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24 THE MILESTONE. Great leaders have always been self directed. Behind every great success may be found a strong personality developed by education. The great achievements of the world are due to the progressive spirit of the few. Emerson says: “Every institution is but the length and shadow of one man.’’ The doctor must have an education, medical and surgical, in order that he may be eminent in his profession. A clergyman must have a broad and classical education. The attorney must be an orator as well as versed in all that pertains to law. Diplomats must be educated; for in many serious questions we depend upon them tor decisions. Therefore, rulers and people are under an oblligation to God and man to educate the young in order that they may become good men and women. A man who fails to do this is an enemy to his country. Luther says: “It is a Divine command from God that children be brought up to His praise and word.” The father who permits his son to roam the streets of a city and become acquainted with low, vulgar and vicious habits which may in time lead to the penitentiary, is an accomplice in the crime of his son. He might have prevented all this with the exercise of paternal authority and by educating his son to higher ideas. The education we have already given the people creates the necessity of giving them more. What has been done has awakened new and unparalleled energies These forces are not mechanical which expend their activity and subside to rest, but they are spiritual forces endued with an indistinguishable principle of life and progression. Education must be universal in order that we may be a successful nation. It is well when the wise discover new truths, but how much better to widely diffuse the truths

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We believed that our path would be pleasant and smooth, Our heads we held dauntless and high bove the cloud— It is useless to try the real fact to deny— As engaging young Freshmen we felt rather proud. Great Gold Discoveries. LELIA WINIFRED THOMAS. What kind of history is more romantic, full of adventure aud achievement than the history of the search for, and discovery of gold? Its pages have but little comedy written upon them, for they are narratives of disappointed human strivings and wrecks of human hopes. The heroine in the story is a bewitching will-o-the-wisp and wherever she tarries in her flight, a flock of adventurers is ever ready to follow, regardless of dangers to be encountered. The followers are stalwart, brawny men whose only luggage is a pick over the shoulder and a pan strapped to the back. Russia held the foremost place as a producer of gold in the first part of the present century. But little was known of these Russian mines at that time, for they were owned by the government and worked by convicts and political exiles, their products being used to support the royal household at St. Petersburg. In the Western World, gold was first discovered in California in the last of the forties, just at a time when the world was ready for a progressive movement in the way of colonization; for the means of transportation were greatly