Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 1, 1900)
THE BATTALION, m defense of their country or to resent an act of oppression as one man. And then I reco£'nize that they have been taught in the same school, that honor IS more precious than ought else and that students, who wear a soldier's garb, must be men when duty calls and gentlemen at all times. May it not be that the very feature of our college, which has been subject to more pub lic criticism than any other that mili tary training demanded by the act of endowment, is perhaps the most val uable of them all? The day may come when soldiers shall no longer be need ed and when all the swords may be fashioned into pruning hooks—I hope it will come:—but I believe, even then, it would be well to continue this fea ture. There all wear the same uniform. Those distinctions of caste or wealth, which are daily becoming more arrog ant and more obtrusive in our com monwealth, must disappear. The poor est lad, when he sees the sons of the rich and the great performing the same duties in shop and class-room and on the campus, must realize that he is their equal, and that, just as he may compete with them for every collegiate or military' distinction, he may meet them in after life on equal grounds. The young students and future citizens learn here, that every' one, man or boy, has duties to per form and that only those who have learned to obey, are fitted to command. When I converse with the alumni of a later period, or the student teach ers, I find the same likeness. While you have pursued different lines of study, while you may have entered out your life pursuits with superior spe cial training, I find,two traits strong and prevailing among you all; a firm attachment for this institution, a quick resentment for any attack upon its fair fame or fortune. Yes, in spite of all these transforma tions the “Old College” still lives within the new. To-day, thanks to the good judgment of our law-givers and the friendly consideration of our honored chief executive, we stand on the threshold of an era of greater de velopment. A comparison of the trials and vicissitudes of the past with the splendid achievements of the present presages the greater glory yet to come, foretells a time when thousands of the sons of Texas, and the daughters as well, will assemble here in place of hundreds to receive • instruction in letters, in applied science and all the practical arts. To this fulfillment we all look forward with joyous anticipa tion. I hope and trust that, when these fair promises have grown into actuali ties, we shall find the same manly bearing, the same unswerving fealty to the old A. & M. College, as charac teristic of its students, its alumni and its instructors as they were in the days of seventy-nine, as they are in ninety and nine. If this hope be realized, we may rest assured that “though men may' come and men may go,” the “Old College” will go on forever—an honor to our State, a source of pride and joy to all who hold it dear.
