He himself, on a rearmost bench, was wedged fast between two other
lads of about his own age--they dumb with dread lest they should be
sent away to this university. The minister soon turned the course
of his sermon to the one topic that was uppermost and bottommost in
the minds of all.

He bade them understand now, if they had never realized it before,
that from the entrance of educated men and women into the western
wilderness, those real founders and builders of the great
commonwealth, the dream of the Kentuckians had been the
establishment of a broad, free institution of learning for their
sons. He gave the history of the efforts and the failures to found
such an institution, from the year 1780 to the beginning of the
Civil War; next he showed how, during those few awful years, the
slow precious accumulations of that preceding time had been
scattered; books lost, apparatus ruined, the furniture of lecture
rooms destroyed, one college building burned, another seized and
held as a hospital by the federal government; and he concluded with
painting for them a vision of the real university which was now to
arise at last, oldest, best passion of the people, measure of the
height and breadth of the better times: knowing no North, no South,
no latitude, creed, bias, or political end. In speaking of its
magnificent new endowments, he dwelt upon the share contributed by
the liberal-minded farmers of the state, to some of whom he was
speaking: showing how, forgetful of the disappointments and
failures of their fathers, they had poured out money by the
thousands and tens of thousands, as soon as the idea was presented
to them again--the rearing of a great institution by the people and
for the people in their own land for the training of their sons,
that they might not be sent away to New England or to Europe.