issue of the Anglo-Saxon spirit, which is the personification
of everything that is noble, liberal, and just. What better
foundation could we have than the morality of Puritanism,
the peaceable and law-abiding disposition of the Friends,
the heroic, self-sacrificing spirit of the early colonists?
And it is always the spirit of the race that is more impor
tant than its form of government. "Liberty, Equality and
Fraternity"—these words have had magical power in
France, but there the essence of them merely existed in the
abstract, whereas in our own country we love and enjoy the
concrete.
These people had hardly touched the shores of the new
world until they sought to infuse the country with educa
tion, that source of all progress. To-clay it is almost uni
versal and is the chief fortification of our republic. Rome
and Athens made no attempt to educate any but the upper
classes. Plato taught that the industrial and producing
classes needed no education whatever. and we all know the
effect. Nothing can give life and stability to a nation but
the enlightening influences of education and Christianityi
and they must be free to all, otherwise the tendency, as in
past ages, would be to approach class distinction with its
direful results. The vitality of a nation depends upon the
integrity of its manhood, and manhood only reaches its
highest powers, its noblest aims when nourished by the life
giving principle of education. No country has made greater
strides to develop an ideal manhood and raise the status of
woman than our own. The poorest man or woman has op
portunity to rise to a higher scale,--no, I may say, they are
required to do so--and it is this very element that estab
lishes our national character and banishes the moral weak
ness of a nation otherwise founded.
We need only look at our own magnificient institutions,
our substantial progress, our prolific inventions, to see the
ideals of our people. On one hand we banish superstition,
Is Our Country Secure.