OCR Text |
Show m pwt id ml OTHER PIKERS ACHIEVED MUCH 1 Speaking at the banquet for the Pioneers at the Idlewild resort yesterday yester-day afternoon, Rrv. John Edward Carver said in part: 'It is to tho pioneers that the world owes some of Its best thought and deeds. The Incident of Orson Pratt is an illustration. Ho wrought one of the world's greatest mental achievements achieve-ments when he laid out the Salt Lake' meridian. He had carrled his time from Omaha by meanB of an ordinary watch and, with the simple surveyor's instrument of the day, he laid out the Temple site and the meridian and de. termlned the latitude and longitude. When years later the most modem methods were available the government govern-ment surveyors found that Orson Pratt's reckoning was within a few feet of being right. It was one of the great feats of the surveyors of all time and is so considered. "Ttirs Is a day of much attention to things educational. The many methods meth-ods advanced to aid in the development develop-ment of the mind are all based on the plan of encouraging the faculties ot imagination and invention of reason ing. No theory of education has ever surpassed the sheer need that con-fronted con-fronted the pioneer The people ot Ogden remember with love that is akin to reverence tho career of T. B. Lewis, as leader of the older schools. He had little of educational aids and had to depend almost entirely upon hiB own ingenuity. That was typical of the life of the pioneers. The daily routine rou-tine developed so much of latest ability abil-ity as they made their meager equipment equip-ment turn to their needs that the age of the pioneers was In Utah, as in every place, a great developer of talent. tal-ent. The strong men and women of a time are usually near or direct descendants de-scendants of pioneer conditions. Washington and Lincoln are American examples of this. The children of tho Ogden pioneers tell the same story. In all the history of schools there Is no greater record of development of ability. The child of the man who worked humbly at turning wooden vessels and utensils and doing his work well in his humble home, by sheer need develops the growing talents tal-ents of his boy in the school of necessity neces-sity and, lo, that boy grows to manhood man-hood and becomes Utah'B leading financier. Where did he learn it? Ho learned it in the dally development of his wits, at the school of pioneer need. The mechanic struggles to maintain a pioneer home and In the struggle he develops in his family a genius that iff world famed today. Every gun that Is fired in the long battle ilne of five nations echoes the world tribute to the greatest gunsmith the age has seen. Every one of the hundred thousand who are working today in ammunition and gun and arsenal plants works to the mental leadership of the Ogden son of a pioneer who, in tho school of hard knocks, de veloped his talents. "We are accustomed to stories of real life today that thrill and dazzle us. Fiction with all the fantasies of thought that modern Arabian Nights can portray can do no more to entertain enter-tain than can the record of real life today. Jules Verne is outdone by real facts, and treasure stories are sur. passed as we read of the rise of the new families wlth new opportunities. The record of a man like Cecil Dhodes who opens a continent, Is echoed in the stories of men in every state. "List to the story of the sons of an Ogden pioneer home. Years ago, on a little thlrteen-acre farm near Ogden, Og-den, there lived a family rich in chil dren of promise, but In their surroundings sur-roundings none would have discerned it. The larder for months at a time knew no bread. The growing youth knew not the comfort of shoes, save as mother Ingenuity could devise them. Once when shoes were Blmply demanded and there were none to be had, that mother tanned cat hide and made shoes that the boys may have them for a social gathering and, .at that gathering, lo, hqr boys with their cat skin shoes were the only ones that had had shoes at all. There were no schools, but that mother found an old Webster blue back spelling book and of her own initiative gathered the children of the community and taught them that book by heart from cover to cover. One book and one determined woman was all their ad vantages. In every way that mother made her impress on that place. Those boys grew up and instead of owning the thirteen acres they moved on to the Individual owning of over 225,000 acres. But that was the least of it. When a new railway was to be laid over deBert and through mountain, moun-tain, those sons of that pioneer woman wo-man were the men of genius to over; come all obstacles and dally move more Bquare yards of dirt and stone than the best genius and equipment of the first nation of the earth could move at the building of the Panama Canal. Their record exceeded that nf the canal for months.' Where did they get the genius? The pioneer mother had, In ways that seemd then ard and with methods that were crude, changed by the alchemy of love the pioneer homo from a loss of con venience into a school rof ability as no endowed college could do. The pioneer mother, with a pioneer life and a pioneer home, had consecrated toil and dedicated lovo and and hallowed hal-lowed life for one end and that end was the advancement of tho family she loved. That is the great heritago of tho pioneer to the age, as It hag been the gift of the pioneers of every age to their youth. The word would become blaso nnd ennui would rule as in tho hermit nations of the Far East, were It not for the Infusion of new ideals, new alms, new opportunities opportuni-ties and the development of new re sources through the agency of the pioneers. "In the school of wits, there Is no teacher like the necessities of pioneer life. Years ago there came a pioneer to Utah and he invested most of hia money in llttlo trinkets that he could carry on the long Journey from Eng land. Among them were several fine pocket knives. After a little time he settled in Utah and, in tho courae of Utah events, needed some seed potatoes. pota-toes. He had no means of getting them save from one man who refused to sell. Knowing that man's deBire for knives, he went to him and whittled whit-tled with the best of his knives. The man wanted to see it, then wanted to try it but the man who needed seed would not let him touch it. At last an offer of some seed potatoes was made for it and by that means aone the seed potatoes were secured. That man with the knife became the founder found-er of the largest department store in northern Utah today. "Take the case of a woman who conquered diphtheria in one of tho valleys where there was no medical aid. The disease had become a epU demic and at last, when her own chil-dren chil-dren were stricken, she gargled their throats and bathed their necks with common coal oil. It was a severe treatment, but in her home and the homes of the valley the plague was stopped. "Tho modern methods of teaching endeavors to make the child do as much thinking for itself as possible. The kindergarten methods and newer plans work to this end. Necessity worked the same way for the children of the pioneers. Necessity with them was the true mother of invention. They added their own thought to the meager things at hand and brought imagination into play in the adding to their simple toys. "Having few toys, they developed both Imgaination and devised construction con-struction to supplant their pleasures In childhood. In mature years they added to their tools and utensils as well as to their adornmnents and comforts by the 'same methods. Thus all their life was a school and the age is richer and their children stronger , for their privation. Unconsciously thev were developed by the same methods as were the leaders of aH ages. They gave to Utah fertile vaK leys and green fields. They turned the sage into a farm of fertility .and caused cities to spring where only the beasts had been. These were great achievements and of enough import to secure for them fame and merit their successors praise. The supreme gift of the pioneers must ever be. found in the sturdy, talented and aggressive spirit of the sons and daughters they trained." |