These principles there laid down with so much solemnity have now the same binding force as in those revolutionary days when they were recognized and proclaimed.  I am not unaware that they are old.  Whatever is, is old.  It is but our own poor apprehension of it that is new.  It would be well if they were re-apprehended.  It is not well if the great diversity of modern learning has made the truth so little of a novelty that it lacks all reverence.

The days of the Revolution were days of reverence and of applied reverence.  Teaching was to a considerable extent in the hands of the clergy.  Institutions of learning were presided over by clergymen.  The teacher spoke with the voice of authority.  He was treated with deference.  He held a place in the community that was not only secure but high.  The rewards of his services were comparatively large.  He was a leader of the people.  From him came the inspiration of liberty.  It was in the meeting-houses that the Revolution was framed.

This dual character little exists now, but the principle is the same.  Teaching is the same high calling, but how lacking now in comparative appreciation.  The compensation of many teachers and clergymen is far less than the pay of unskilled labor.  The salaries of college professors are much less than like training and ability would command in the commercial world.  We pay a good price to bank men to guard our money.  We compensate liberally the manufacturer and the merchant; but we fail to appreciate those who guard the minds of our youth or those who preside over our congregations.  We have lost our reverence for the profession of teaching and bestowed it upon the profession of acquiring.

This will have such a reaction as might be expected.  Some of the clergy, seeing their own rewards are disproportionate, will draw the conclusion that all rewards are disproportionate, that the whole distribution of wealth is unsound; and turn to a belief in and an advocacy of some kind of a socialistic state.  Some of our teachers, out of a like discontent, will listen too willingly to revolutionary doctrines which have not originated in meeting-houses but are the importations of those who lack nothing but the power to destroy all that our civilization holds dear.  Unless these conditions are changed, these professions will not attract to their services young men of the same comparative quality of ability and character that in the past they commanded.

In our pursuit of prosperity we have forgotten and neglected its foundations.  It is true that many of our institutions of learning are well endowed and have spacious buildings, but the plant is not enough.  Many modern schoolhouses put to shame any public buildings that were erected in the Colonies.  I am directing attention to the comparative position of the great mass of teachers and clergymen.  They are not properly appreciated or properly paid.  They have provided the foundations of our liberties.  The