The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 105, July 2001 - April, 2002 Page: 343
741 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Collection
In every official publication released by The University of Texas are these
burning words of the first president of the Republic of Texas, Mirabeau B.
Lamar: "Cultivated mind is the guardian genius of Democracy. . . . It is the only
dictator that freemen acknowledge, and the only security that freemen desire."
Someone has said that the dictator nations are nations of the cultivated
mind. The American, the Texan historian does not believe in and will not sup-
port that kind of culture. The cultivated mind of the dictator nations is the mind
of a culture warped, a culture of greed and hate and brutal, abysmal force. Ours
is and must continue to be a culture of cleanliness, of righteousness, and of de-
cent human ethics. It is the duty of the historian to preserve and to expand that
culture.
As America expects every individual to do his duty, so does America expect as-
sociations made up of individuals to do their duty. This is no time to falter, to
trim, to cry halt, to weaken, to quit. The American way of life is a precious way. It
is the duty of the historian and of the historical association to do everything to
preserve that way. American boys who go into battle must be armed with bullets
and bayonets and hand grenades. They must carry with them also a deep, an abid-
ing faith in the spiritual decency symbolized in and based upon our past. It is the
duty of the factory to furnish the mechanical tools of war. It is the duty of the his-
torian and of the historical association to supply the knowledge of the past upon
which the spirit of the present must feed and breathe and grow.
As this is being written in a quiet office far removed from the drone of fighting
planes and the explosions of deadly bombs, tower chimes ring with the refrain
from the Christmas carol, "Peace on earth. Good will among men." Appropriate
and timely, perhaps, would be the last stanza of another Christmas carol, "To Chil-
dren," written by (of all people) Ogden Nash. It runs:
God rest you, Merry Innocents,
While innocence endures.
A sweeter Christmas than we to ours
May you bequeath to yours.
It is the duty of the historian and of the historical association to think straight,
to be brave in heart, to carry through, so that we, together with the rest of a great
people, may pave the way for our children's bequest to their children of a sweeter
Christmas and sweeter days for all the years to be.
William H. Goetzmann,Jack S. Blanton Professor of History at the Uni-
versity of Texas at Austin, and Dallas businessman and author Stanley
Marcus will be honored with the Bookend Awards for lifetime achieve-
ment at the sixth annual Texas Book Festival on Saturday, November 17.
The presentations will be made during the festival's kick-off session at
10:30 A.M. in the House chamber in the Texas State Capitol. Tributes de-
scribing the honorees' lifetime contributions to literature and the world
of letters will be delivered by novelist Tom Wolfe of New York City, long-343
2001
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 105, July 2001 - April, 2002, periodical, 2002; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101222/m1/373/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.