This is very well in theory, and practice has shown
that, as Napoleon said, "Every private may carry a marshal's baton
in his knapsack." Alongside of the good such incentive may
produce, it is only fair, however, to consider also how much harm
may lie in this way of presenting life to a child's mind.
As a first result of such tall talking we find in America, more
than in any other country, an inclination among all classes to
leave the surroundings where they were born and bend their energies
to struggling out of the position in life occupied by their
parents. There are not wanting theorists who hold that this is a
quality in a nation, and that it leads to great results. A
proposition open to discussion.
It is doubtless satisfactory to designate first magistrates who
have raised themselves from humble beginnings to that proud
position, and there are times when it is proper to recall such
achievements to the rising generation. But as youth is
proverbially over-confident it might also be well to point out,
without danger of discouraging our sanguine youngsters, that for
one who has succeeded, about ten million confident American youths,
full of ambition and lofty aims, have been obliged to content
themselves with being honest men in humble positions, even as their
fathers before them. A sad humiliation, I grant you, for a self-
respecting citizen, to end life just where his father did; often
the case, nevertheless, in this hard world, where so many fine
qualities go unappreciated, - no societies having as yet been
formed to seek out "mute, inglorious Miltons," and ask to crown
them!
To descend abruptly from the sublime, to very near the ridiculous,
- I had need last summer of a boy to go with a lady on a trap and
help about the stable.
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