“There are two methods of education. One is the laboratory or experiment station method. When problems arise, they are sent there where the methods of exact science are applied, and the answer returned. The process is of no consequence, the answer alone is desired. This is the method of authority. Those who drink at that well thirst again.

“Life is not an exact science. In ethics, civics, economics, and politics all the facts are not known. For dealing with these questions, we need college of the liberal arts to which men go to learn the process for discovering truth. These institutions are established to teach men to think, to create within them a well of water everlasting. This is the justification of that democracy which is the foundation of our Republic.

“The paramount duty of those who are college bred is to apply the process for determining the truth to the problems of the present time. They ought to understand and comprehend the meaning of current events and recent history and so understanding help to interpret it wisely for the public benefit. There never was greater need than at the present time.

“The world has just experienced the six most eventful years in human history. Whole continents have broken with the past. Dynasties have ended. Empires have fallen. This has come not from the preconceived plan of man. That plan was for the aggrandisement of power, for earthly glory, for a place in the sun, for military supremacy. It came as the irresistible shock of war in which the artificial in human relationship was cast aside and the real prevailed. If despotism has not yet been banished from its rule over people at least it no longer wears a crown, it is no longer glorified anywhere but denied everywhere, and wherever practiced now masquerades under popular sovereignty. The ideal of the founders of this University [the University of Vermont] is beginning to grip the earth in its entirety.

“In this change that has marked all peoples America had not remained unchanged. Politically we appear to be the same. Our political institutions, resting on the firm foundation of the people, have not been shaken. They have been assailed, will be assailed both by the unthinking and the vicious. Against all such assaults this University stands as a firm defence. It was established that the inhabitants of this State might be free. But how be free, how come into the greatest liberty? Not by casting aside all restraint, but by the observance of all law, not by lack of self-control, but by an intense discipline, and finally never by ignorance but ever by a larger knowledge of the truth. There may be an involuntary servitude but never an involuntary liberty. It is ever purchased with a great price. It is not given or bestowed, it is acquired. The American people in their sovereignty must forever remember that to set free a King requires the ransom of a King.”

— Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge, June 28, 1920, Burlington, Vermont

May this 248th anniversary of Independence call from each of us a reflection on what authentic liberty is and what it costs to keep it. A Happy Fourth to all lovers of liberty everywhere!

“Works which endure come from the soul of the people. The mighty in their pride walk alone to destruction. The humble walk hand in hand with Providence to immortality. Their works survive. When the people of the Colonies were defending their liberties against the might of kings, they chose their banner from the design set in the firmament through all eternity. The flags of the great empires of that day are gone, but the Stars and Stripes remain. It pictures the vision of a people whose eyes were turned to the rising dawn. It represents a hope of a father for his posterity. It was never flaunted for the glory of royalty, but to be born under it is to be a child of a king, and to establish a home under it is to be the founder of a royal house. Alone of all flags it expresses the sovereignty of the people which endures when all else passes away. Speaking with their voice it has the sanctity of revelation. He who lives under it and is loyal to it is loyal to truth and justice everywhere. He who lives under it and is disloyal to it is a traitor to the human race everywhere. What could be saved if the flag of the American Nation were to perish?”

— Governor Calvin Coolidge, 26 May 1919, for Flag Day on 14 June 1919

“This Nation approaches no ceremony with such universal sanction as that which is held in commemoration over the graves of those who have performed military duty. In our respect for the living and our reverence for the dead, in the unbounded treasure which we have poured out in bounties, in the continual requiem services which we have held, America at least has demonstrated that republics are not ungrateful. It is one of the glories of our country that so long as we remain faithful to the cause of justice and truth and liberty, this action will continue. We have waged no wars to determine a secession, establish a dynasty, or glorify a reigning house. Our military operations have been for the service of the cause of humanity. The principles on which they have been fought have more and more come to be accepted as the ultimate standards of the world. They have been of an enduring substance, which is not weakened but only strengthened by the passage of time and the contemplation of reason.

“Our experience in that respect ought not to lead us too hastily to assume that we have been therefore better than other people, but certainly we have been more fortunate. We came on the stage at a later time, so that this country had presented to it, already attained, a civilization that other countries had secured only as a result of a long and painful struggle. Of the various races of which we are composed, substantially all have a history for making warfare which is oftentimes hard to justify, as they have come up through various degrees of development. They bore this burden in ages past in order that this country might be freed from it. Under the circumstances it behooves us to look on their record of advance through great difficulties with much compassion and be thankful that we have been spared from a like experience, and out of our compassion and our thankfulness constantly to remember that because of greater advantages and opportunities we are charged with superior duties and obligations. Perhaps no country on earth has greater responsibilities than America.”

— President Calvin Coolidge, Arlington, May 1926

Our salute to all who have heard, with compassion and gratitude, America’s call not to be served but to rise up and serve. Our thoughts are with all who were there that fateful day in 1944.