8
the battalion
ties. It spurs him to a higher aspiration and loftier ambi
tions. It awakens within a man the pride of independence.
It kindles within his bosom the spark of patriotism and a
sense of duty, and thus becomes a potent factor in the body
politic. I beg leave to say again that while education Avill
not accomplish every thing, yet, it is the only weapon with
which we can vanquish Ignorance and Indifference, which
are the arch-fiends of our beloved country.
dean Sans--delai.
If you should make a journey to the extreme northern
part of our State, you might happen to come across a tract of
high rolling prairie, well watered by numerous small streams,
threaded with numerous lanes, and dotted with many white
farm bouses, that stand out like so many monumentd to the
thrift and enterprise of the Anglo-Saxon race. Now and then
a small village lends variety to the landscape, and, at longer
intervals, a thriving and prosperous town.
If you should visit this region in the early spring time,
you would find the prairie covered with a velvety carpet of
green, figured in all the variety of nature’s handiwork, with
many brilliant hued flowers. In places, you would see this
landscape broken by great black rectangular patches of fresh
ly ploughed ground, making the country look like a gigantic
checker board, in colors of green and black; still, among these
you might see the bright green wheat fields, and further on
the faint, green tinge of the fields of young corn.
The streams you would find heavily fringed with red
bud, swayed in all the gorgeousness of their color, the wild
plum holding forth her gift of immaculate white, and the
great sombre oaks, pecans, cottonwoods, elms, etc., doing
their utmost to enliven the scene, by covering their great
gray boughs and scarred trunks with the all pleasing green.