Defining the Pioneer Spirit – Sunday, July 20, 1980
There is hardly a community or town from Plymouth Rock to the Western Seaboard which does not owe its existence to pioneers—to brave men and women who cleared the land, drained the swamps, who challenged discouragement and sickness in order to push the frontiers of civilization westward.
Among the thousands of monuments which beautify our landscapes to honor these determined settlers is one which stands on a rugged oak covered hill looking westward across the valley of the Great Salt Lake. It was from this vantagepoint on a July day in 1847 that a small band of worn and weary Mormon pioneers looked down upon the uninviting desert and declared that this was the place they would conquer, to build a thriving well-ordered metropolis. Sculptured figures of bronze and granite now bear mute testimony to the endurance and stamina of these early colonists.
This monument, and the countless others like it, however, is not only a memorial to the pioneers of the past; but it is also a tribute to that spirit which pushes mankind towards new frontiers in all times and in all ages. It is a shrine to the very spirit of man itself, which is the spirit of conquest, of exploration, and of progress.
Thomas Carlyle wrote, “(Man) is of the earth, but his (spirit) is of the stars. His wants and desires. . . serve a soul exalted with grand, glorious aims—with thoughts which sweep the heavens, and wander through eternity . . . his far-reaching spirit stretches outward to the infinite.”1
Thus, the pioneer spirit is not dependent upon covered wagons and oxen for its survival.
For it is the same spirit which has thrived in all climates, under all conditions; it is the identical spirit which bade Galileo challenge the accepted theories of the planets, and brought Columbus seeking a new world in the unknown. It was the motivating factor behind the discovery of penicillin, the unseen force which pushed the Apollo astronauts towards the moon.
And so today, as we honor the pioneers of the past, we also honor the pioneer of the present; we pay tribute to the eternal spirit of mankind which has not only pushed back the frontiers of the American west, but also the frontiers of science, of ethics, of the arts and humanities, and of civilization itself.
1 Thomas Carlyle. “Man,” The New Dictionary of Thoughts, Standard Book Co. 1965. p 383
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July 20, 1980
Broadcast Number 2,657