, then, is the new-world quest of Goodness and Beauty
and Truth gone glimmering? Must this, and that fair flower of Freedom
which, despite the jeers of latter-day striplings, sprung from our
fathers' blood, must that too degenerate into a dusty quest of
gold,--into lawless lust with Hippomenes?

The hundred hills of Atlanta are not all crowned with factories. On
one, toward the west, the setting sun throws three buildings in bold
relief against the sky. The beauty of the group lies in its simple
unity:--a broad lawn of green rising from the red street and mingled
roses and peaches; north and south, two plain and stately halls; and in
the midst, half hidden in ivy, a larger building, boldly graceful,
sparingly decorated, and with one low spire. It is a restful group,
--one never looks for more; it is all here, all intelligible. There I
live, and there I hear from day to day the low hum of restful life. In
winter's twilight, when the red sun glows, I can see the dark figures
pass between the halls to the music of the night-bell. In the morning,
when the sun is golden, the clang of the day-bell brings the hurry and
laughter of three hundred young hearts from hall and street, and from
the busy city below,--children all dark and heavy-haired,--to join
their clear young voices in the music of the morning sacrifice. In a
half-dozen class-rooms they gather then,--here to follow the love-song
of Dido, here to listen to the tale of Troy divine; there to wander
among the stars, there to wander among men and nations,--and elsewhere
other well-worn ways of knowing this queer world. Nothing new, no
time-saving devices,--simply old time-glorified methods of delving for
Truth, and searching out the hidden beauties of life, and learning the
good of living. The riddle of existence is the college curriculum that
was laid before the Pharaohs, that was taught in the groves by Plato,
that formed the trivium and quadrivium, and is to-day laid before the
freedmen's sons by Atlanta University. And this course of study will
not change; its methods will grow more deft and effectual, its content
richer by toil of scholar and sight of seer; but the true college will
ever have one goal,--not to earn meat, but to know the end and aim of
that life which meat nourishes.

The vision of life that rises before these dark eyes has in it nothing
mean or selfish. Not at Oxford or at Leipsic, not at Yale or Columbia,
is there an air of higher r