The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 59, July 1955 - April, 1956 Page: 204
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
bank. This, combined with a shortage of cash in the Texas treas-
ury, contributed to the vitiation of Lamar's efforts for a national
bank.
By contrast, however, Lamar's advocacy of a system of state
education met with approval in Texas. A proper state controlled
education, based on the Lamar plan, included such nationalistic
beliefs as instilling in the youth the love of the country, a sense
of public duty, and devotion to the state. Lamar approved the
educational methods the Greeks had used because "the Knowledge
diffused among the people there comprised the duties of religion,
obedience to the laws, inflexible honor, contempt of danger and
Superior to all; the love of country.""98 To emphasize youth's
obligation to the republic Lamar again referred to the Greeks
and advocated, "Cultivate those principles of public duty their
fidelity to which won for the Spartans at Thermopylae the noble
inscription of the Grecian port, that those who fell there died
in obedience to the Laws of their Country -."9"
In a speech Lamar made to Congress on December 21, 1838,
a speech which University of Texas President William L. Prather
once called "a trumpet call to duty,"95 Lamar gave his ideas for
the educational need.
Our Young Republic has been formed by a Spartan Spirit-let it
progress and ripen into Roman firmness and Athenian gracefulness
and wisdom. Let those names which have been inscribed on the stand-
ard of her martial glory, be found also on the page of her history,
associated with that profound and enlightened link in the chain of
free States, which will some day encircle, and unite in harmony the
whole American Continent. Thus, and thus only, will true glory be
perfected; and our nation which has sprung from the harsh trump of
war, be matured into the refinements, and the tranquil happiness of
peace.96
Lamar told the same Congress that for a republican govern-
ment to be a success a sound system of education must be estab-
lished. "It is admitted by all, that cultivated mind is the guardian
9sEssay on Education, in ibid., 391.
o9Ibid., 392.
9aFrank W. Johnson, A History of Texas and Texans, edited by E. C. Barker and
E. W. Winkler (5 vols.; Chicago and New York, 1914), V, 2649.
90M. B. Lamar, Message to the Texas Congress, December 21, 1838, in Lamar
Papers, II, 349.04
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 59, July 1955 - April, 1956, periodical, 1956; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101162/m1/222/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.