368 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



decide, without any dictation from bosses or demagogues, wliat will 

 have a salutary influence on our country. Every home should be a 

 nursery of patriotism. In peace the country needs men, as well as in 

 war; men who will not bow to all the mandates of the politician; who 

 are not patriots simply for the sake of political preferment; but who 

 are true to their convictions of right, though their course be un- 

 popular and compel them to sacrifice personal or political prestige. 

 These are patriots of the highest type, and as real heroes as those 

 who proved their valor on the field of battle, amid the boom of cannon 

 and the clasli of arms; and I heartily endorse the sentiment recently 

 expressed by a southern orator, that one true, devoted mother can 

 instil more real patriotism than a dozen loud-mouthed men. A 

 moral atmosphere should pervade every home. Instruction of this 

 kind should be regarded as of paramount importa^nce, since morality 

 (;nnobles individuals and exalts nations. The moral training in a 

 majority of our homes is intrusted mainly to the mothers; and many 

 are laboring zealously and are achieving excellent results in the de- 

 velopment of grand and noble characters. 



Some years ago the question "What does the country need most?" 

 was asked in England. Her statesmen pondered over it and referred 

 it to the throne; and from the sovereign, who had herself been a 

 model along that line, came the answer "More good mothers." Many 

 of our eminent men paid the most glowing tributes to their mothers 

 for the influence they exerted on their lives. When Jackson was 

 complimented for not being afraid to say and do what he believed 

 to be right, he replied, "That I learned from my good old mother." 

 Lincoln saiv,, "All that I am or ever hope to be, I ow^e to my mother." 

 While the kiss w'hich Garfield gave his wife and mother just before 

 reading his inaugural was an acknowledgment before the assembled 

 thousands how much he was indebted to those two estimable women 

 for the honor conferred upon him. And I venture to aflSrm here this 

 evening, without the least possible fear of successful contradiction, 

 that that mother who gathers her children around her knee, teaches 

 them to lisp the infant prayer, and implants the principles of piety, 

 noble manhood and virtuous womanhood and the germs of good 

 and useful citizenship, is more entitled to the plaudits of the world 

 and the gratitude of the country and posterity than most of the war- 

 riors w^ho wade to power and renown through rivers of blood and the 

 tears of thousands of widows and orphans. "The hand that rocks 

 the cradle is the hand that rules the world." Boys and girls cannot 

 always be kept away from temptation, but I believe that through 

 judicious training it is possible, in a majority of cases, so to fortify 

 them that when the waves of temptation roll against them they will 

 recoil like the ocean's billows when they dash against some bold 

 headland. 



