134 ANDREW JACKSON HOWE. 



from one condition in life to a higher sphere. Amer- 

 icans esteem the inheritance of property and the 

 worth of a good family history ; but we hold in higher 

 estimation the opportunity to attain through perse- 

 verance and integrity the most exalted stations in the 

 Great Republic. Woman in the past, Biblically and 

 otherwise, has been treated as inferior to man, and 

 thus the human race has been degraded. In America 

 the son does not feel disgraced from evidence of serv- 

 ility on the maternal side. We are assured that as 

 we sow, thus shall we reap; and that grapes do not 

 spring from thorns, nor figs from thistles. Or, as 

 Horace poetically expressed the idea in Ode IY : 



" Fortes creantur fortibus et bonis, 

 Est in juvencis, est iu equis patrum, 

 Virtus, neque imbelleni feroces, 

 Progenerant aquilae coluinbam." 



