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Show i Valley Forge's Ghosts The University of Pennsylvania is laying plans for con-Atrtiction con-Atrtiction of a new college of liberal arts and school of history on a 325-acre tract of land in historic Valley Forge. There is no indication whatever that the university authorities auth-orities plan to make this new college , in any sense a memorial to the heroes of the American Revolution. Yet, whatever their intentions, that is precisely what it would be. There are a few names in American history that glow brightly, with a wild, unquenchable radiance, in any sentence where you drop them. Valley Forge is one of them. It is a word that has been woven into our national being. Whatever What-ever happens in Valley. Forge, however unimportant, has an added significance simply because of the chance of geography. geo-graphy. college is built there, and young students gather at Valley Forge each year to study and learn about the world and about life and try out their new young powers the whole thing will mean something more than the mere addition to America's list of colleges. It will be a sort of memorial to the things Valley Forge stands for. Think of it. The soul of the nation, one might sa,y was born at Valley Forge ; or, if not born, at least given the early training that was to help shape its course. People live by traditions ; and one of our very grandest and noblest traditions tradi-tions spring from the Pennsylvania hamlet where Washington's Washing-ton's army went into winter quarters during the darkest hour of the Revolution. ; The British were at Philadelphia, strong and warm and veil fed, Philadelphia was glad to have them. The Revolution Revolu-tion was none too popular there. Out at Valley Forge, in miserable huts, lay the "ragged continentals" of Washington. They were cold, poorly clad, miserably fed. A stocky Prussian Prus-sian was busy whipping them into an efficient fighting machine, mach-ine, and a horde of dissatisfied officers were busy scheming to get Washington replaced and win power for themselves. The new-born nation was very close to death. The discouraged veterans, one imagines, must have wondered won-dered , at times, what the future could hold.. Was Valley Forge to be tho end or was there , something ahead that jvould be worth all the suffering, all the sickness, all the 'discouragement? Were." they fighting in a lost cause, or would the children of men yet unborn bless them, in some distant day, for their endurance ? The proposed new college would be a kind of answer I for them. What could be more fitting than that the scene j of the continental army's blackest hour should become a site for a college a place where carefree; fortunate young men end women could spend the brightest years of their lives? " The ghosts of the old continentals still hover about Valley Forge. This new symbol of the peace and the richness of the country Ithey established, we believe, would majke them fc-lad. |