THE HESPERIAN STUDENT.
necessary for the advancement of this great and im
portant work so that every student can not only get
a theoretical, but also a practical knowledge of the
subject. The theoretical is useless without the piac
tical, the practical can only be obtained by means
of a thoroughly equipped laboratory. Iowa has dis
covered this and built a fine laboratory. Colorado
has also felt the importance and built agood labora
tory, Kansas has followed Iowa and Col.; Nebraska
alone is behind. The Student sincerely hopes that
ere another year rolls around, Nebr. will ha'e follow
ed the footsteps of her sister states and have built a
laboratory which is so earnestly demanded by the stu
dents throughout the state.
THE PI GRIM FOREFATHERS,
By II. II.
'Neath hoary iuosb on crumbling stones
Their names arc fading day by day;
The fashions of their lives and; perch
From Bight and pound have passed away.
The shores they found so bleak, so bare
Shine now with riches gay and proud;
And we, light-hearted, dance on ground
Where they in anguish wept and bowed.
Unto the faith they bought so dear
We pay each day less rev'rent heed;
And boast, perhaps, that we outgrow
The narrowness which ninrked their creed.
A shallow boairt of thankless hearts,
In evil generation born;
Uy side of thoe old Pilgrim men
The ages shall hold us in scorn.
Find mc the nien on earth who care
Enough for faith or creed to-day
To seek a barren w lldernen
For simple liberty to pray;
Men who for simple cake of God
All titles, rlcheb would refuse,
And In their ttead disgrace and shame
And bitter poverty would choose.
Wo And them not. Alasltheagc,
In all its light, hath blinder growu;
In all its plenty, starves because
It seeks to live by bread alone.
We owe them all wo have of good;
Our sunny skies, our fertile fields:
Our freedom, which to all oppressed
A continent of refnga yields.
And what we have oi ill, of shame,
Our broken word, our greed for gold,
Our reckless schemes and treacheries,
In which men's souls are bought and sold-
All these have come because wo left
The paths that those Forefathers trod;
The simple, single-hearted ways
In which they feared and worshiped God,
Despise tbelr narrow creed who will I
Pity their poverty who dare I
Their lives knew joys, their lives wore crowns
We do not know, we cannot wear.
And if so be that it is saved.
Our poor Kopnbllc, stained and bruised,
'Twill be because wo lay again
Their corner-stones which we refused.
OUR INDEBTEDNESS TO STOIC PIIILOSOPII Y.
We live in an age of Progress. The veil of darkness,
superstition, and tyranny, whicli has rested over mankind
for so many ages is lifting, and day is breaking. Step by
Btep men rise from the degradation of (lie inquisitorial
persecution of an Alexander, the tyranny of a Louis XIV,
or ihe oppression of a George III. Liberty and progress
go hand in hand. As the bonds arc burst and thu
shackles loosed which have kept men's iiioughts and
actions so long in servitude, hesucceees to his lawful in
herilar.ee, the dignity and majesty of man.
Various philosophies have arisen lending towards the
elevation of man; but in no system do we And such noble
principles, sucii lofty aims, as in that of the Stoics. Duty
and especially duty to their country, was the inspiring
thought. Rome was pre-eminently the homo of Stoicism,
and because duty carried the Stoic into public life, ho
was brought into close alliance with the Roman lawyers,
and durine the centuries of that alliance, thoroughly in
corporated his principles in Ihe civil law, Rome's price
lees legacy to Modern Nations. The fundamental prin
ciples of this philosophy was the Law of Nature. This
law is scarcely definable, and has been variously inter
preted. The Sloics were the first to recognize it as
"Symmetrical Order." As all things in Nature were Hub
ject to Iter laws, man a creature of Nature, must also bo
subject to Ithciu. The Roman lawyers, stimulated by
the Stoicial theory of Natural Law, held that man had
originally !ecn governed by it, hut had departed from
that ideal stale. Conservative and opposed lo violent
changes, they believed that gradually all laws and cus
toms were again to be brought into confonnily to this
"Symetrical Order." Thus the functions of Natural Law
wereremedial. This view is no doubt the rational one,
and was to a certain extent the result or the condition of
society at that time. But what was the condition of
Biiclety in the most brilliant period of Roman ascend
ency, the nge of Anumine Cuesarh?
The Romans were the ruling class. They were then
masters or the civilized world,-the makers and adminis
trators of law. Their subjects were usually content with
their subordinate position. Many of them had been but a
short time under Roman rule. Attracted by the superior
wisdom or their conquerors, and initiated ns members of
a clvilzed state, their condition was belter than it had
ever been before. Where an organized system of governs
ment had previously existed, the Romans made it an in
tegral part of their policy lo leave a large portion of the
local ndminstratmn in the hands of newly conquered peo.
pie. Thc.r l.berty was gradually diminished. Rome
supplanted the native institutions by those of Iter own,
and often so gradually as to awaken no rebellion. But to.
gether wiih ibis subjection .hero was a tendency to sore .
yise and admin.stcr the law, that justice should be dono
to all. The leveling power of Natural Law was uncon-