And State Papers 55 



could choose the duty that he thought sufficiently 

 spectacular to do, but doing the duty that came to 

 hand. That is exactly the lesson that all of us 

 need to learn in times of peace. It is not merely 

 a great thing, but an indispensable thing that the 

 nation's citizens should be ready and willing to die 

 for it in time of need ; and the presence of no other 

 quality could atone for the lack of such readiness 

 to lay down life if the nation calls. But in addition 

 to dying for the nation you must be willing and 

 anxious to live for the nation, or the nation will be 

 badly off. If you want to do your duty only when 

 the time comes for you to die, the nation will be 

 deprived of valuable services during your lives. 



I never see a gathering of this kind; I never 

 see a gathering under the auspices of any of the 

 societies which are organized to commemorate 

 the valor and patriotism of the founders of this 

 nation ; I never see a gathering composed of the men 

 who fought in the great Civil War or in any of 

 the lesser contests in which this country has been 

 engaged, without feeling the anxiety to make such 

 a gathering feel, each in his or her heart, the all- 

 importance of doing the ordinary, humdrum, com 

 monplace duties of each day as those duties arise. 

 A large part of the success on the day of battle is 

 always due to the aggregate of the individual per 

 formance of duty during the long months that have 

 preceded the day of battle. The way in which a 

 nation arises to a great crisis is largely conditioned 

 upon the way in which its citizens have habituated 

 4 VOL. XIII. 



