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A Retrospect; 
 nd a Prosped;" 
 
 Commencement Addiess of 
 HON. FRANK H:^ORCROSS, 
 Justice of the Supreme Court ' '' ' 
 
 ^Delivered at the University of Nevada 
 May 17, 1911, upon the occasion of the 
 twenty-fifth anniversary of the establish- 
 ment of the State University at Reno. 
 
 ^Published by request of the State 
 Superintendent of Public Instruction 
 
 <- /^,^-i.fc-. 
 
Bancfoh Libraxy 
 
 A RETROSPECT AND A PROSPECT 
 
 Mr. President and Friends of the University: 
 
 " A mighty hand from an exhaustless urn 
 Pours forth the never-ending flood of years." 
 A quarter of a century may be regarded a long or short period 
 of time, depending upon the relation which that period bears to cer- 
 tain other historical events. It is a very short time of the world's 
 recorded history. It is relatively a short time in the life of the older 
 American colleges. Harvard College was two hundred and fifty 
 years old the year the University of Nevada was established in Reno. 
 James Russell Lowell, delivering the address at Cambridge upon 
 that anniversary, observed that the occasion was "not remarkable as 
 commemorating any venerable length of days." There were colleges 
 in Europe half a thousand years old before Harvard first saw the 
 light of day. The last twenty-five years, however, have witnessed 
 great progress in the material, intellectual and moral advancement 
 of the world. A great many centuries of history could be grouped 
 together and, so far as the promotion of the world's civilization is 
 concerned, could scarcely be considered in comparison with what the 
 past twenty-five years have accomplished. Twenty-five years is a 
 generation in the life of man, and this particular generation has 
 achieved more than any other generation that ever preceded it. 
 Twenty-five years covers no insignificant part of the history of our 
 country, while it represents more than half of the history of our 
 State. It is nearly half the time which has elapsed since, by the 
 treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, concluding the Mexican War, this vast 
 western country, of which Nevada is a part, was ceded to the United 
 States. It is exactly half of the period of time which has intervened 
 since the first gun was fired upon Fort Sumter, an event m our 
 country's history to which this University may trace, without much 
 indirection, its origin. We may find then sufficient occasion for a 
 special observation of the successful conclusion of the first quarter of 
 a century which has elapsed since this University was established in 
 its permanent home at Reno. This is an occasion, I take it, when 
 we may with profit turn back the pages of our history for the pur- 
 pose, if for none other, of seeing if we may find therein an earnest 
 of what we may expect for the future. If the past has been one of 
 hard struggle and glorious achievement, so may we expect the future 
 to be one of unabated effort and greater accomplishment. A State 
 University is a part of the State Government— the most valuable 
 part. Its history is comprehended within the larger history of the 
 State, and that history must of necessity have left its impress upon 
 
 
4 A RETROSPECT AND A PROSPECT 
 
 the University. The student who does not have a pride in the 
 history of his Nation, his State, and his University will never get the 
 best out of his opportunities, and it is certain the State will never 
 get the best in return from him. 
 
 Who made this State and this University what it is? Of what 
 kind of clay were molded the pioneers who, in 1864, organized a 
 State upon a foundation of barren, rock-ribbed, wind-swept, and 
 sunburnt mountains, of sagebrush valleys and of dreary desert 
 wastes, who wrote. into the Constitution of this State the motto, "All 
 for our Country," and, at the same time they thus pledged their fealty 
 to the Nation, then undergoing the supreme test, made, as a part of 
 the organic law, provision for a public school system that is unex- 
 celled, a part of which is this splendid University we see here today? 
 
 " In what a forge and what a heat 
 Were shaped the anchors of thy hope!" 
 
 The struggle with the elements for a home and fortune makes 
 strong characters, and they were strong characters who made a State 
 from the Territory of Nevada. There is nothing else so alluring to 
 men of energy, daring and perseverance as the quest of the precious 
 metals. It was the gold in the gulches and ravines of California 
 which in '49 and the '50' s caused stalwart Americans all over the 
 land to leave their offices, their workshops, their farms, their col- 
 leges, and turn their faces westward and pursue the long, tiresome 
 and perilous journey across the plains or by way of the Isthmus or 
 around The Horn to the Golden Gate. It was the silver in the veins 
 and ledges of Nevada, a decade later, that turned the tide of these 
 modern Argonauts back across the Sierras, to a part of what was 
 then known as the Great American Desert. The rush of population 
 to western Utah, caused by the discovery of the Comstock Lode and 
 other great mines with the accompanying production of precious 
 metals, then doubly valuable to the Nation, made a new territorial 
 government a necessity and the Territory of Nevada was created. 
 President Lincoln appointed James W. Nye Territorial Governor and 
 Orion Clemens, brother of Mark Twain, Territorial Secretary. The 
 appointment of Governor Nye was an exhibition of the wisdom and 
 foresight of Mr. Lincoln. We of this day, I fear, do not fully appre- 
 ciate the commanding figure of Governor Nye in the history of this 
 State. Nye was one of the most gifted and persuasive orators in the 
 United States of his time. He was a man of varied experience, a 
 lawyer by profession from the State of New York, who had served 
 upon the Bench of his native State and also as the first president of 
 the Metropolitan Board of Police of New York City. W^ith William 
 H. Seward, he had traveled on a stumping tour of the Western 
 States in the first Lincoln campaign. He was destined to play no 
 small part in the affairs of the Pacific Coast. W^ith Thomas Starr 
 King, the orator-clergyman of San Francisco, he is mentioned as 
 doing valiant service in keeping the Pacific Coast States and Terri- 
 tories steadfast for the Union cause during the Great Rebellion. 
 The political necessities growing out of the Civil War caused Presi- 
 
A RETROSPECT AND A PROSPECT 5 
 
 dent Lincoln to deem the admission of the Territory of Nevada into 
 the Union as a State a matter of the very greatest importance. His 
 administration had determined that the Constitution should be 
 amended so that slavery should be abolished. 
 
 "This," says Mr. Charles A. Dana, in his hook— RecoUectionfi of 
 the Civil War — "was not only a change in our national policy; it 
 was also a most important military measure. It was intended, not 
 merely as a means of abolishing slavery forever, but as a means of 
 affecting the judgment and the feelings of those in rebellion. It was 
 believed that such an amendment to the Constitution would be 
 equivalent to new armies in the field; that it would be worth at least 
 a million men; that it would be an intellectual army that would tend 
 to paralyze the enemy and break the continuity of his ideas." 
 
 To thus amend the Constitution required that the proposed amend- 
 ment be ratified by three-fourths of the States. When that question 
 came to be considered, the administration found that, of the States it 
 could rely upon, it was one short of the necessary number. The genius 
 of President Lincoln solved the problem. He would create a State 
 out of the Territory of Nevada for the purpose, and rely on the 
 patriotism of her people to ratify the amendment. In March, 1864, 
 the question of allowing Nevada to form a State Government came 
 up in the House of Representatives. There was strong opposition to 
 it, but Mr. Lincoln threw into the breach the potent force of the 
 administration and the measure was carried. Mr. Dana, then Assist- 
 ant Secretary of War and one of the President's confidential advisers, 
 quotes Mr. Lincoln as saying, shortly before the vote was taken: 
 " Here is the alternative — that we carry this vote, or be compelled to 
 raise another million, and I don't know how^ many more, men, and 
 fight, no one knows how long." 
 
 When great political questions are in the balance, sometimes 
 events follow each other with remarkable rapidity. On the 21st day 
 of March, 1864, the enabling Act for Nevada passed Congress and was 
 approved by President Lincoln. The Act provided for an election to 
 be held on the first Monday of June following, for delegates to a con- 
 stitutional convention to be held just one month later. The conven- 
 tion met on the 4th day of July, 1864, adopted a proposed constitution, 
 which, by the terms of the enabling Act, was voted upon and approved 
 by the people on the first Wednesday of the following September. As 
 soon as the vote could be canvassed, a copy of the Constitution was 
 transmitted to the President by telegraph, at a cost of more than 
 thirty-four hundred dollars for the one dispatch. (We may observe 
 here in passing that there has been material progress in the reduction 
 of telegraph tariffs since that time.) By the terms of the enabling 
 Act, the approval of the Constitution was placed exclusively with the 
 President. On the 31st day of October, President Lincoln issued his 
 proclamation declaring Nevada admitted into the Union on an equal 
 footing with the original States. Eight days later an election for state 
 and county officers was held and the newly elected officials assumed 
 their duties on the first Monday in December. On the 1st day of 
 February, 1865, Congress submitted to the several States the Thir- 
 
Q A RETROSPECT AND A PROSPECT 
 
 teenth Amendment, and two weeks later it was ratified by the Legis- 
 lature of the new State of Nevada. Well may Nevada be called the 
 Battle-Born State and this the Battle-Born University, for, had not 
 any one of our three greatest wars been fought, the occasion for this 
 magnificent assemblage would not have existed. 
 
 It is interesting and instructive to note the body of men who 
 composed the convention that framed our State Constitution. Of the 
 thirty-five delegates all but two came to Nevada from California, and 
 all but three had come to California before 1860. The number eleven 
 seems to have been a number to conjure with in that convention. 
 There were eleven "Forty-Niners"; eleven lawyers; eleven natives of 
 the State of New York; eleven counties were represented; eleven 
 States contributed to its membership, and the average prior residence 
 upon the Pacific Coast of all the delegates was eleven years. The 
 article relating to education and the creation of this University is 
 numbered eleven. If there is anything in omens, our University 
 eleven ought to be invincible. 
 
 There were represented in that convention lawyers, doctors, bank- 
 ers, miners, farmers, lumbermen, merchants, editors, surveyors, and 
 artisans. It was a representative body of Pacific Coast Pioneers. 
 Men of character, ability, integrity, fortitude and energy. They real- 
 ized that they had been called upon to play an important part in the 
 great struggle that was then testing the life of the Nation. They knew 
 that Nevada at that time possessed little that ordinarily is considered 
 essential to make a State— a shifting and uncertain population, gath- 
 ered mainly around a few mining camps, was nearly all. The very 
 wealth which Nature had secreted in the hills was to be taken out and 
 removed to other more attractive climes. Railroads there were none, 
 the nearest railroad point then being twelve hundred miles away. 
 The telegraph had arrived, but the ox and mule team, the stage and 
 the pony express were destined to be the mode of travel and com- 
 munication and the only avenue of commerce for some years to come. 
 A few, who were not entirely blinded by the lure of gold and silver, 
 saw in agriculture and kindred pursuits a slower, more modest, but 
 more certain, fortune. The most accessible waterways were applied 
 in a crude way to irrigation, and agriculture, that industry which 
 must eventually share equally at least with mining in the permanent 
 greatness of our State, had its beginning. 
 
 The convention of 1864, in preparing a constitution, of necessity 
 builded for the future rather than for the present. With the fore- 
 sight of true statesmen, they framed an organic Act that was designed 
 not only to accomplish the immediate purpose of Statehood as a legal 
 entity, but one which was broad and comprehensive in its scope, as 
 is evidenced by the provisions for a public school system, the real 
 foundation-stone of the true greatness of any State. One entire 
 article was devoted to the subject of education. No other article of 
 the Constitution better illustrates the foresight of those pioneer State- 
 builders. They provided the means for a splendid common school 
 system; for a normal school for the education of teachers, and a uni- 
 versity which, by express provision, should embrace "departments of 
 
A RETROSPECT AND A PROSPECT 7 
 
 agriculture, mechanic arts and mining"— three branches of learning 
 which were deemed would prove most valuable to the people in the 
 development of the State's natural resources. 
 
 It is also interesting and instructive at this day to read the 
 debates in that convention, particularly upon the subject of educa- 
 tion. The carefulness with which the subject was considered, the 
 time devoted to it and the purpose manifested, not only to mak^ pro- 
 vision for the future, but to determine in advance that certain lines 
 of instruction of practical advantage in the development of this new 
 country should be given prominence. 
 
 The following remarks made by a delegate from Washoe County 
 will serve somewhat to illustrate conditions, educational and other- 
 wise, which existed in Nevada forty-six years ago when our Consti- 
 tution was under consideration and the future university under 
 discussion: "I do not anticipate as much advantage from a state 
 college as other gentlemen seem to. It is true that we appear to have 
 peculiar facilities here for a mining college — more, probably, than in 
 any other place in the world— and if everything here proposed were 
 going to that, I would be strongly in favor of it. But when we come 
 to speak about establishing a college in general, in which the ordi- 
 nary branches of a collegiate education are taught, I must say, while 
 I would be very glad to see it prosper, I have but little faith in it. It 
 is too easy to reach other regions, where grass grows, to be trodden 
 under the feet of the pupils, and trees to wave over their heads and 
 where they do not have to drink in alkali, like the bitter waters of 
 Marah." 
 
 We may forgive the then representative of the county in which is 
 now the seat of the University for the views he expressed, for he was 
 the only "tenderfoot" in the convention, having come to Nevada from 
 "Back East" (Minnesota) only the year previous, and his faith was 
 not yet well grounded. He had still to learn that the sagebrush 
 was holding but temporary occupancy of the soil until, under the 
 wise plan of the Creator of the Universe, it should surrender perma- 
 nent possession to the corn of nourishment, the wine of refreshment, 
 and the oil of joy. Then, too, those remarks were made four years 
 before the City of Reno had its birth. Doubtless none of those 
 pioneer State-builders in their most vivid imagination ever pictured a 
 scene of beauty such as we see here today. The green verdure is 
 here to be trodden under the feet of the students, the trees to wave 
 over their heads, pure water to drink, fresh from Nature's reservoirs 
 of snow, and, surrounding all, the eternal mountain peaks, ever an 
 inspiration to higher thoughts, to nobler deeds, to greater aspirations. 
 
 Nevada fulfilled the political purpose which brought about its 
 creation. It did more. The half billion dollars of precious metals 
 which it turned into the lap of the Nation during the years of the war 
 and in the decade immediately following, not only went far to main- 
 tain the credit of the country and enable it to resume specie payments 
 at least a decade sooner than it otherwise could, but the precious 
 metals from Nevada mines have played no small part in the progress 
 of the world. It is impossible to estimate or even imagine what has 
 
g A RETROSPECT AND A PROSPECT 
 
 been accomplished, is being accomplished, and will continue through 
 all time to be accomplished by the gold and silver which Nevada's 
 mines have produced. We know something of what a portion of 
 that wealth hae accomplished under the direction of one master-mind, 
 that of John W. Mackay. We know how he, through its medium, 
 has brought the people of all nations into closer communication and 
 in closer relations, and how, through that same medium, his son and 
 successor is today extending that great instrumentality of civilization. 
 Gold and silver coins may be regarded as the red and white cor- 
 puscles of the life-blood of the world, and Nevada has been, and still 
 is, one of the great storehouses of the life-giving element. 
 
 Such, in brief, has been the general history of our State. It is a 
 history of which no Nevadan need ever be ashamed, but on the con- 
 trary may be one of just pride. Small in population as Nevada is, 
 its influence has been potent in the affairs of the Nation and the 
 world at large. It has freely yielded to the world the millions of 
 dollars in precious metals its mines have produced. They, by their 
 inherent properties, belong to the world. The great Architect of the 
 Universe placed them in our hills for a purpose, and that purpose 
 was a larger one than can be bounded by States or countries. We 
 could not hold them if we would; we would not if we could. While 
 our wealth of metals was not ours to keep, there was provided a com- 
 pensation for their loss. Nature lavishly gave others of her choicest 
 gifts, but she made such disposition of some of them that before they 
 may be fully possessed and enjoyed there must be expended the 
 highest order of man's energy and genius — conditions which make 
 for a people the strongest, noblest and best in character. 
 
 The history of the State has been the history of this University, 
 one of struggle against obstacles, one of triumph over difficulties. 
 As our State came into existence, that there might be written into 
 the organic law of the Nation the truth, enumerated in the Declara- 
 tion of Independence, that all men are endowed by the Creator with 
 the inalienable rights of life and liberty, so this University came into 
 existence as a natural sequence of Statehood, impressed with the 
 responsibility that, so far as the people of this State were concerned, 
 it should be the means of transmitting unimpaired to future genera- 
 tions an appreciation of the high responsibilities which they owed to 
 the State, the Nation, and to humanity in general. 
 
 "Peace hath her victories no less than war," is a familiar quota- 
 tion. While we owe our existence to war, our triumphs must be in 
 peaceful struggles to attain our highest development. 
 
 To one who has watched the growth of this University from the 
 beginning, today is one of deep significance, both to the University 
 and to the State. One cannot be a witness of the proceedings of 
 this day without absorbing a renewed confidence for the future of 
 Nevada, and having a feeling that in this University lies the fountain- 
 head for the future greatness of the State; that from here is to come 
 an influence all-potent for development to a higher plane, socially, 
 morally, and materially. 
 
 It is on occasions of this kind that we note progress. Some of 
 
A RETROSPECT AND A PROSPECT 9 
 
 us here today know full well what this University has accomplished 
 during the past twenty-five years. Some there are who enrolled their 
 names as students twenty-five years ago. The number was not large. 
 Few, if any, had any conception of what a university or college was 
 like. The faculty was small, and the material was the rawest of the 
 raw. It was the planting of the acorn. The faculty taught what 
 they could best teach, and the students absorbed to the best of their 
 ability what was offered for their consumption. The pioneer stu- 
 dents had inherited not a httle of the characteristics of their pioneer 
 parents, and not the least of the most valuable lessons they learned 
 was that of making the best of conditions as they existed. The stu- 
 dents somehow managed to get a good deal of what they needed 
 most. While the course of study necessarily had its limitations, it 
 was practical and suited to the needs of the students and the condi- 
 tions of the State. From the beginning the graduates of this Uni- 
 versity have been able to hold their own in competition with their 
 brothers from the more noted colleges in the practical affairs of life 
 requiring technical training, skill and ability. Possibly we may not 
 for some time produce a graduate who will become distinguished in 
 literature or art. I hope we shall, and there is no reason why we 
 should not. If, however, we produce graduates who will solve the 
 problem of reclaiming the sagebrush valleys of Nevada, and making 
 them the abode of a prosperous people, the University will have 
 achieved something of the success its founders hoped for. Some of 
 our graduates have already grappled with that problem, and they 
 intend to succeed. The dramatist put in the mouth of Cardinal 
 Richelieu the words: "In the bright lexicon of youth, there is no 
 such word as fail." So be it. The graduates of this University are 
 all in the youthful class. 
 
 The students who graduated during the first years of this Univer- 
 sity, before it could be said to be equipped to do the real work of a 
 university, received an education which enabled them to successfully 
 engage in the battles of real life. All realized they were deficient in 
 many particulars. They learned later, thanks to the embryo faculty, 
 that they had acquired a good foundation in many of the subjects 
 that this busy workaday world uses in the practical affairs of life. 
 While their opportunities were limited for delving into the classic 
 realms of the dim and distant past, by the agency of the unburied 
 dead, they grasped the things the knowledge of which made for suc- 
 cess in the expiring years of .the Nineteenth Century and the begin- 
 ning of the Twentieth. fiascvoft Ubmy 
 
 The later graduates, time considered, have been doing as well as 
 their predecessors. All over this State and outside of the State they 
 have been and are doing first-class work. This leads me to the con- 
 clusion that this University has been and is now fulfilling the wise 
 purpose designed for it by the framers of our Constitution. It is a 
 practical university. When the pioneer founders of this State 
 embodied in the Constitution a provision that a university should be 
 established which should embrace departments of mining, agriculture 
 and mechanic arts, I believe thev builded better than they knew. 
 
IQ A RETROSPECT AND A PROSPECT 
 
 They intended that the University should be a practical university; 
 that primarily it should fit the young men and women of Nevada 
 with the means of making a livelihood in this busy, material age, 
 when civilization was being promoted by science and industry faster 
 than it ever had been in the classic ages of old; that it should be, first 
 of all, an aid to the State in solving the fundamental problems of state 
 development which only minds, trained in the modern arts and 
 sciences, could solve. This University doubtless will never have great 
 numbers of students. It may never be famous as a seat of classic 
 learning. But it can be the most practical university in America. 
 We owe it to our honored benefactors as well as to ourselves to make 
 the Mackay School of Mines the best mining school in the world. The 
 University can and must be second to none in the instruction it is 
 enabled to impart in agriculture and all the applied sciences. In 
 addition to this it must be able to impart a liberal education in 
 English, the modern languages, in literature, history, and the science 
 of government. For those who feel they must have them, and for 
 those who really need them, I hope the opportunity may always exist 
 for the pursuing of a study of the dead languages, providing, always, 
 that the student body shall never be compelled to sacrifice a greater 
 means of knowledge of the living present, to gain a superficial con- 
 ception of these scholastic heirlooms. I have no fear, however, that 
 the occasion will ever arise which shall find justification for a gradu- 
 ate of this University to return to his Alma Mater and say, as did one 
 of the most distinguished graduates of Harvard, in dehvering the Phi 
 Beta Kappa oration at that university but three years before this 
 University was established in Reno, say: 
 
 I am glad that I came here, and glad that I took my 
 degree. But as a training-place for youth to enable them 
 to engage to advantage in the struggle of life, to fit them to 
 hold their own in it and to carry off the prizes, I must in all 
 honesty say that, looking back through the years and recall- 
 ing the requirements and methods of the ancient institution, 
 I am unable to speak of it with all the respect I could wish. 
 Such training as I got, useful for the struggle, I got after 
 instead of before graduation, and it came hard; while I 
 never have been able — and now, no matter how long I may 
 live, I never shall be able— to overcome some great disad- 
 vantages which the superstitions and wrong theories and 
 worse practices of my Alma Mater inflicted upon me. 
 
 And not on me alone. The same may be said of my 
 contemporaries, as I have observed them in success and fail- 
 ure. What was true in this respect of the college of thirty 
 years ago is, I apprehend, at least partially true of the col- 
 lege of today; and it is true, not only of Cambridge, but of 
 other colleges, and of them quite as much as of Cambridge. 
 They fail properly to fit their graduates for the work they 
 have to do in the life that awaits them. 
 
 Concluding the oration, "The Study of Greek as a College Fetich," 
 in which the foregoing is an example of many similar expressions, 
 
A RETROSPECT AND A PROSPECT n 
 
 Charles Francis Adams, Jr., scholar, lawyer, soldier, railroad presi- 
 dent, overseer of Harvard, conspicuous member of one of America's 
 most illustrious families, said: 
 
 I shall hold that I was not myself sacrificed wholly in 
 vain if what I have said here may contribute to so shape the 
 policy of Harvard that it will not much longer use its pro- 
 digious influence toward indirectly closing for its students, 
 as it closed for me, the avenues to modern life and the foun- 
 tains of living thought. 
 
 Such were the views of a graduate of the first college in America, 
 as he looked back over thirty years of a most active life. The ora- 
 tion created something of a sensation in the educational world of 
 America at the time and started something of a revolution in the 
 older colleges in the way of adjusting themselves to the conditions of 
 the modern world. 
 
 This University, from necessity, was compelled to place the prac- 
 tical in the foreground of its instruction. It needed no revolution 
 within itself to become abreast with conditions as they existed in the 
 last quarter of the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 Let me not be understood as favoring a sacrifice of everything 
 else for the practical. The college student of today needs as much, 
 if not more than ever, a grasp upon something of the ideal. He 
 should not, of course, be turned out a mere machine, capable 
 only of transforming a maximum amount of the raw material into 
 the finished product within a minimum of time. He is not to be 
 made an automaton. He needs to acquire a taste for the best in 
 literature; he requires a knowledge of history, and it is his duty to 
 know something of the science of government. He stands always in 
 pressing need of a thorough knowledge of his own language and he 
 ought to be acquainted with one or more foreign languages, such as 
 French, German, and Spanish. He wants an education that will not 
 only fit him for success in his chosen vocation, but one which as well 
 will enable him to fulfil his obligation to society. 
 
 I believe this University today comes as near fulfilling the 
 requirements of a modern American university, so far as the needs 
 of 'the great majority of students are concerned, as does most of our 
 best colleges, and nearer, even, than some. 
 
 It is true we haven't the wealth, or the name, or the numbers of 
 students or faculty, but we have the same access to the knowledge 
 which the world has acquired up to this time as has any other 
 similar institution. All colleges and all universities must draw from 
 the same general fountain of knowledge, and the student here can 
 drink it in under a clearer sky, in a purer atmosphere, midst the 
 inspiration of mountains and valleys, and with the knowledge, as a 
 spur to his faculties, that all about him lie opportunities for the 
 display of the best that is in him. 
 
 There are some I know in Nevada who are still under the spell 
 of the enchantment that distance and a name lends to their view. 
 Some who it would seem cannot believe that they have within their 
 own State a university that can do as well, if not better, for them 
 
12 A RETROSPECT AND A PROSPECT 
 
 and for their sons and daughters as can be done elsewhere. To be a 
 graduate of Harvard or Yale or Princeton or Columbia, or of any of 
 the other great colleges, which have done so much to mold American 
 thought and action, does not of itself carry any guarantee of success. 
 This is an age when men must make good by sheer force of their 
 ability to do at least some one thing well and, if they cannot do that, 
 it is all the same whether their sheepskins bear the proud name of 
 Columbia or the modest one of Nevada; they have to give way to the 
 men who can. 
 
 The University doubtless has made mistakes. If it had not it 
 would hardly be able to qualify as a university. The most valuable 
 lessons of life sometimes are learned through mistakes, and what is 
 true of the individual is true of a university. It is a matter of keen 
 personal gratification to me that I was honored with an invitation to 
 deliver the Commencement address upon this day, which also marks 
 the twentieth anniversary of the graduation of the first class, of which 
 I had the privilege and honor of constituting thirty-three and a third 
 per cent. It is, however, a matter of far greater gratification to me 
 as a citizen of Nevada, who has followed the course of this University 
 from its beginning at Reno until the present day, who has with keen 
 interest marked its progress and observed its students and graduates, 
 to be able to say that it is all and more than its founders hoped for; 
 that it is, above all other institutions of Nevada, the one in which her 
 citizens can have the greatest pride; that it has reached a position of 
 power and influence that will be the most potent force in aiding the 
 State in achieving that high destiny which her natural resources make 
 possible. All honor to the Regents, to our benefactors, to the faculty 
 and presidents who have helped to make this University what it is. 
 Of all those who have labored for this University, there is one who 
 towers above all others; one to whom the people of this State owe a 
 debt of gratitude they can never fully pay. I speak of the man who 
 has been the guiding spirit of this University for the past seventeen 
 years, who has given the best portion of his life to its upbuilding; 
 whose heart and soul have been in it; who has brought to its aid a 
 mind of learning, of experience and of mature judgment; and who 
 has impressed upon it the all-potential force of a noble character — 
 its President. 
 
 I have spoken of the University, of its history, its humble begin- 
 ning and its present achievement. There is but one thing more I 
 wish to say and I have finished. Every university must do some- 
 thing more than be a mere instrument to impart book-learning. It 
 must represent the highest ideals of the State and must impress 
 those ideals upon the State. A State must have a character the 
 same as an individual must possess character if he is to achieve the 
 highest success his natural abilities make possible. The University 
 must fix the ideals for the State. They may be higher than the 
 State can reach for some time, but the ideals must exist just the 
 same, and gradually the State will approach them. Most of us here 
 present expect to live and die in Nevada. We want, not only a good 
 name for ourselves, but we want our State to have a good name. 
 
A RETROSPECT AND A PROSPECT 13 
 
 No better people as a class live in any State in the Union than live 
 in Nevada. The people of Nevada possess the sterling virtues. 
 They are liberal and broad-minded, and I hope they will always 
 remain so. I believe they will. People cannot live in a country like 
 this and not be liberal and broad-minded. The air is too free and 
 the skies are too clear and the mountains too inspiring for a people 
 ever to become narrow and bigoted. But we don't have to surren- 
 der our broad-mindedness and liberality in order to command the 
 respect of our sister Commonwealths. 
 
 We have stricken from our statutes laws that were a withering 
 blight to our State as long as they remained. It was the University 
 ideal that did it. If we yet have other laws that are a blot upon our 
 State character, they, too, cannot long withstand the force of the 
 University ideal. 
 
 Nevada holds a unique position in the Sisterhood of States. Her 
 area is vast, her population small, her industries limited, her great- 
 ness yet to be achieved. The influences which make hard the achieve- 
 ment of an ideal State Government are not powerful here. It is easier 
 for Nevada to possess a model government than any State in this 
 Union. While we are building our State from the material side, let 
 us look to it that our laws are wise, progressive and designed to meet 
 the requirements of a great and prosperous people. We have been 
 making progress in this respect, and we are entitled to be classed in 
 the front rank of States in the matter of legislation, but we have laws 
 that are otherwise as well as wise. One great trouble with this coun- 
 try, both in our national and state affairs, is that we are laboring 
 under a great deal of undigested legislation. Government is a science 
 that has to be studied the same as any other science. In the City of 
 Goldfield is a mill for the reduction of ore. It is a part of a great 
 system that modern engineering has developed. It has reduced the 
 waste to a minimum. It is the result of investigation, of experiment, 
 of knowledge. It is the product of trained minds who have learned 
 how to apply natural laws to the operation of a great industry so as 
 to achieve the highest degree of success. There is little or no waste 
 there. In the days when the Comstock was producing its prodigious 
 wealth, a great portion of that wealth was irretrievably lost because 
 the science of mining had not reached that perfection which prevails 
 today. The same inviolable laws of Nature existed then, but man 
 had not yet grasped a complete knowledge of their application. 
 Statutory laws are essentially man-made, and are not capable of the 
 perfection of natural laws. Their true basis, however, is natural law, 
 for they control man's relationship to his natural environment. The 
 appalling thing in government, national, state, county and municipal, 
 is the waste we see in life, health and money, either because of lack 
 of law or the wrong kind of law or inability to administer the law as 
 it is, or all these situations combined. The one great defect in our 
 whole American educational system, it appears to me, is that it fails 
 to teach the youth of this country how best to govern themselves. 
 
 We insist that to be qualified to take charge of a small school in 
 a little country district the teacher must have taken a course of 
 
14 A RETROSPECT AND A PROSPECT 
 
 study, passed an examination, and have received a certificate of 
 qualification before she can begin to direct the young idea, but 
 when it comes to selecting members of our Legislatures, or men to 
 administer the intricate affairs of government, there seems now to be 
 but about two essential requisites — does he stand all right with his 
 party, and is he popular. He may come from the farm, the work- 
 shop, or the office, and he may have been a success in his vocation; 
 he may be a man of the highest personal character, but he may 
 know, and usually does know, comparatively nothing about the 
 political duties and responsibilities he is about to assume. Try as 
 hard as he will, do the best he can, he often fails to satisfy either 
 himself or the public, and if he rises to the full grasp of his position 
 it is only after hard study and unceasing labor to qualify himself for 
 his position. In the meantime, if the public receives from the gov- 
 ernment fifty to sixty per cent of efficiency, it is doing reasonably 
 Mell, all things considered. 
 
 Now the fault lies, to a considerable extent, with our public 
 school system. Our schools fail, in my judgment, in the first instance 
 to actually teach the rising generation the responsibilities of citizen- 
 ship. We assume that if a pupil goes through our public schools he 
 has absorbed enough from the general atmosphere of the schoolroom 
 to thoroughly fit him for citizenship, without any particular instruc- 
 tion therein whatever. We constantly hear of the duties and respon- 
 sibilities of citizenship, and none will deny that there are such. What 
 we need is some sort of specific definition of them and then to have 
 them taught in our schools. When this is done the professional poli- 
 tician who is in politics for the loaves and fishes will be out of a job. 
 The colleges and universities of this country must come to the full 
 realization of their responsibilities — that it is just as much their duty 
 to train men for a profession of statecraft as it is to train men to 
 become civil or mining or electrical engineers, to become doctors, or 
 lawyers, or ministers. Everyone in this country who receives an edu- 
 cation at public expense, should be required to pursue a course in the 
 fundamentals of citizenship and government, and in addition there 
 should be schools of higher learning for those who wish to go into 
 politics as a life profession. 
 
 When our schools and colleges come to a realization that this is 
 a matter for them to deal with, that it is a responsibility they must 
 assume, then we will begin to see the day when we will have in this 
 country ninety and ninety-eight per cent efficiency in governmental 
 affairs, the same as we see it in great mining enterprises, like those 
 at Goldfield, or at Tonopah, or at Ely, as we see it in the conduct of 
 great railroad systems and great business enterprises of every char- 
 acter. Whatever there is to be done in America our schools and col- 
 leges must train men to do. This is an age which requires efficiency 
 in every avenue of private endeavor. Why should it not require the 
 same degree of efficiency in public affairs? Such efficiency will be 
 demanded as soon as the public schools teach the requirements of 
 citizenship as it now teaches hygiene, and as soon as the colleges 
 
A RETROSPECT AND A PROSPECT 15 
 
 and universities train students in the science of government as it 
 now trains them in engineering or in medicine. 
 
 The public schools and colleges everywhere must meet this 
 demand upon them, and when they have done so they will have ful- 
 filled their obUgation to the people who maintain them. It should 
 be one of the highest ideals of every American college and university 
 to give to all its graduates, regardless of what profession or calling 
 they may intend to follow, a thorough comprehension of the duties 
 they owe to society as private citizens, and to give to those who con- 
 template entering upon a public life the same foundation for efficiency 
 therein as it gives to those who enter fields of private endeavor. 
 
 And now, in conclusion, let us this day renew our fealty to this 
 University which was conceived in the wisdom of the founders of 
 our State, which has steadfastly pressed onward through years of 
 trial and adversity until today it proudly wears the laurel wreath of 
 victory. More especially let us, the alumni of this University, our 
 Alma Mater, to which we are indebted for much that we are or hope 
 to be, ever be zealous to aid her in her lofty ambition to extend her 
 powers for good into ever broader fields of usefulness. May this 
 University continue to grow in powder and prestige until by virtue of 
 a knowledge of its true worth its name will be a synonym everywhere 
 for work well done. 
 
 o 
 
CARSON CITY, NEVADA 
 State Printing Office, : Joe Farnsworth, Superintendent 
 
 1911