Our whole history is one of discipline. And what has it made of us? A
nation that has sung
THE DEATH-KNELL OF THE KINGS OF THE EARTH.
I think a good deal of these lines of James Russell Lowell:
This land o' ourn, I tell ye's gut to be
A better country than man ever see;
I feel my sperit swellin with a cry
That seems to say: "Break forth and prophesy."
O strange New World, that yet wast never young,
Whose youth from thee by gripin' want was wrung,
Brown foundlin' o' the woods, whose baby bed
Was prowled round by the Injun's cracklin' tread,
An' who grewst strong thru' shifts, and wants, an' pains.
Nursed by stern men, with empires in their brains!
Another sweet poet has sung:
Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey
Where wealth accumulates and men decay.
There can be no question that wealth is fast accumulating. Let fathers,
and mothers, and preceptors spur the rising generation to that love of
accuracy, of "right dress," as the soldiers say, which puts each man in
his place, certain to stay there as long as he has agreed to, and
certain to act when the fitting time arrives.
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