THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.
775
Shall fame be counted one of the units of measure by which relative success can be computed ? Whose names does the gilded trumpet proclaim in tones that promise echoes from unborn generations? Croesus is seldom remembered save when and because associated with Solon. In this respect an exquisite irony seems to wait on practical men; having served the practical all their lives to insure fame, they dedicate the practical results of their lives to the ideal. Having worshiped all their lives at the altar of utility, at their deaths to purge the gold they have won from their goddess, and to secure from it an immortal gilding for their names, they must needs desert her and lay her gifts upon the shrine of culture. Through what agencies are the names of Astor, Girard, Cooper, Cornell and Hopkins kept green in 'the grateful memories of generations that knew them not? Not through trading stations, commercial agencies, financial systems and mammoth business enterprises, but through the colleges, the universities, the art institute, the library which they respectively founded. Through giving local habitations to culture do these kings of the practical alone secure a name.
This generation, reared in the doctrines of Utility, promises to be conspicuous above all generations by virtue of the voluntary tributes which her most distinguished apostles of the practical pay to culture. Never has the practical been more exalted or more faithfully served than by the adventurous explorers and speculators who have pursued its ends on the Pacific Coast; but Leland G. Stanford entrusts the perpetuation of his name not to ranch or mine or mint, or vineyard or gold mine, but to that noble university where his practical successes shall all be transmuted into the Olympic nectar, the Hymethian honey and the fair Minervan loaves, upon which Culture feeds her children; and his compeer, James Lick, builds his millions and his hopes of fame into the stately columned and towered observatory which shall hold his name always above the clouds, and link it with celestial contemplations.
To one who will consult their inner significance, these tributes of the practical to the ideal make touching appeal. In that the name of Aristotle will outlast that of Astor, of Claude Lorraine that of Cooper, of Bacon that of Girard; in that the names of Homer and Dante and Milton will outlive that of Stanford and those of Galileo, Bruno and Herschel will outreach that of Lick, there are two lessons which he who runs may read.
The first is that the humblest lover and devotee of culture has a claim upon immortality which can not be won by those who build even the proudest altars in her honor, if they have spent their own lives in worshiping at other shrines.
The second is that there is no quarrel between the practical spirit and culture, but that as God makes the wrath of man to serve him, so culture turns the fruit of practical careers into soil and seed, which shall insure the enlargement of her harvests. Culture has repeated these object lessons so often that practical minds are beginning to see the corollary of them, and are wisely using culture as an instrument in forwarding their plans for the conquest of the material world.
They are unmistakable evidences that culture is, more and more, commanding from the devotees of the practical that recognition which is her due; that she will never be satisfied with the tribute of temples and altars from the practical world until that world shall carry into its offices and market places the spirit and methods to be learned only at her feet.