Transcriber's Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
In Grecian mythology it is related that Zeus, warned by an oracle thatthe son of his spouse, Metis, would snatch supremacy from him, swallowedboth Metis and her unborn child. When the time of birth arrived, Zeusfelt a violent pain in his head, and in his agony requested Hephæstus tocleave the head open with an ax. His request was complied with, andfrom the brain of the great god sprang Athena, full-armed, and with amighty war-shout. She at once assumed a high place among the divinitiesof Olympus. She first took part in the discussions of the gods asan opponent of the savage Ares. She gave counsel to her father againstthe giants; and she slew Enceládus, the most powerful of those who conspiredagainst Zeus, and buried him under Mt. Ætna. She became thepatron of heroism among men, and her active and original genius inspiredtheir employment. The agriculturist and the mechanic were under herspecial protection, and the philosopher, the poet and the orator delightedin her favor. The ægis was in her helmet, and she represented theether—pure air. She was worshipped at Athens because she caused theolive to grow on the bare rock of the Acropolis. She was also the protectressof the arts of peace among women. She bore in her hand thespool, the spindle, and the needle, and she invented and excelled in allthe work of women. She was the goddess of wisdom and the symbol ofthought; she represented military skill and civic prudence. In war shewas heroic and invincible; in peace she was wise, strong, inventive, andindustrious.
Kansas is the Athena of American States. Thirty-six years ago theSlave Oligarchy ruled this country. Fearing that the birth of new Statesin the West would rob it of supremacy, the Slave Power swallowed theMissouri Compromise, which had dedicated the Northwest to Freedom.2The industrious North, aroused and indignant, struck quick and hard,and Kansas, full-armed, shouting the war-cry of Liberty, and nervedwith invincible courage, sprang into the Union. She at once assumed ahigh place among the States. She was the deadly enemy of Slavery; shegave voice and potency to the demand for its abolition; and she aided inburying Secession in its unhonored grave. The war over, she became thepatron, as she had been during its continuance the exemplar, of heroism,and a hundred thousand soldiers of the Union found homes within theshelter of her embracing arms. The agriculturist and the mechanic werecharmed