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Show 16 Utah Academy One of ,the central of Sciences, Arts and Letters purposes of the American Pioneer !rails Association is to rouse folk in various states to an appreciatIOn: of their historical resources. Retracing old trails, finding "story spots" and monumenting them is just an outward activity aimed at something deeper, more spiritually significant. That something is the cultivation of the spirit of true authorship which finally will create a body of literature that will live and last and with it an product that will truthfully portray the epic of the "Beehive State," and other states linked together by the historic trails of our land. ........ art . , Such living art and literature will come. only as authors and search for truth. They must know their history, their geography, their science, to produce literature that will live. They must rise to an appreciation of the pioneers of their state-of all creeds and nationalities. Further than this, they must take a broader view of the epic story. Get too close to a mountain and it is generally pretty craggy. Put it off in the purple distance, with some sunrise or sunset above it, and it becomes a: thing of romance. Like folk of every other state we have been to close to die literary riches of our own state propertly to evaluate them. And there has been too great a tendency to judge the building by its scaffolding. In the creation of any commonwealth -any of I the states of this nation-as in the erection of any structure, there is ever a good deal of muss and confusion. When brick or stone and mortar and lumber is piled about, it is difficult for a mere on-looker to get an adequate conception of the finished work. It is from these surface investigations that have sprung too many of the novels, the poems, the dramas that have mis-portrayed Utah. artists devote themselves to a more earnest . , / The time is here when a finer literature and art should be created. Our schools, from the universities and colleges through die high schools and even the grades, have a opportunity for leadership in this great work. It is notsplendid a backward, but a forward look with history and science-with literature and art for which we plead. Our hope IS that Utah will rise to the challenge and develop gloriously these hidden riches. |
