58 Thirty-Fifth Annual Report of the 



significant fact that more than seventy-five per cent, of our lead- 

 ing statesmen, soldiers, sailors, financiers and professional and 

 business men are country born and bred. Oh, the glorious days 

 of childhood ! When every day is a golden gem, every night a 

 jewel set with diamond stars,, when we have everything to gain 

 and nothing to lose, everything to learn and nothing to forget. 

 Time and again I have asked men and women if they would like 

 to return and live their childhood over again. Almost invariably 

 the answer has been; "No, I scarcely think I would, but I would 

 not be bereft of its memories for the wealth of the world." 



But our boyhood and girlhood dream is over and we are men 

 and women. Unhappy, indeed, must he be who looks back with 

 regret and bitterness upon those days, thrice happy he who 

 gazes back through the mellow mist of years with nothing to re- 

 gret, but who, with the dear memories walking ever by his side, 

 goes forth daily to do and to dare, because of these a better 

 father or mother, a better son or daughter,, a better husband or 

 wife, a better citizen, a better man or a better woman. 



"How does it come, dear," said a wife to her husband, "that 

 married men live so much longer than single ones?" 



"They don't my love, replied the brute, "It only seems 

 longer." 



Those old days were no better than we are enjoying today, 

 they only seemed better. No man need regret having been born 

 too late. Every year is better than the preceding one. every 

 month a better month,, every week a better week, every day a 

 better day— richer in knowledge and advancement, richer in 

 human sympathy, charity and love, richer in the spirit of the 

 brotherhood of man and the fatherhood of God, richer in op- 

 portunity to make the world wiser, happier and better for our 

 having lived. If every generation was not an improvement on 

 the last, the world would make no advancement. 



I have no use for the pessimistic theology that persists m 

 calling this bright world of ours a "vale of tears" or in that 

 narrow spirit that would crush all the joy and happiness out of 

 life in the almost hopeless task of getting to heaven. That he 

 who placed us here meant us to be happy is very evident, else 

 he would not have made the world so beautiful, or given us so 

 many ways of pouring joy into our lives. 



In this life of ours there are two essentialities to peace and 

 contentment ; they arc happiness and success. The unhappy man 

 is seldom successful, the successful man has no time to be un- 

 happy. 



"The love of money is the root of all evil," says the good 

 St. Paul, yet strange to say most of us find it a mighty con- 

 venient root to have around, and we are very prone to measure 



