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015
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Transcription
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HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA
THE BACKGROUND
From the first, the pioneer plainsmen of Nebraska were not content to be absorbed only in the activities of the present. They were not only adventurers and workers; they were dreamers. They fixed their eyes upon the future; and they planned with a constructive capacity which in these days—when Indian questions are no more, when territorial and statehood aspirations have so long been realized, when innumerable cities have replaced the cabins and dugouts of earlier generations—we should hold in grateful memory. For the most part, the minds and energies of the contemporary generation are occupied with the manifold interests of the present. It is rare that we pause to give thought the pioneers who laid so strongly and so surely the foundations of our life today, and made possible its successes. Only an occasional chronicler of early institutions looks back over their struggles, and realizes, with reverent attention, the ideals and efforts of generations long in their graves.
When we think at all of those who obeyed the dictum "Go West" and made their pioneer homes in the region which was to be the territory and afterwards the state of Nebraska, we picture them as men passing their lives in isolated districts, far from the centers of population, and preoccupied with the tireless work attendant upon the breaking in of a new country. We picture them as engaged in useful labors but as leading humble and routine lives, engrossed in pioneer tasks. We are likely to forget that they were a special breed of men, especially rich in ambitions and ideals,—richer in these, it may well be, than many of us who are their descendants. Like the colonists of New England, they had muc
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Rights
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To inquire about usage, please contact Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries. These images are for educational use only. Not all images are available for publication.
