290 Presidential Addresses 



saws and precepts into the son, if his own character 

 gives the lie to his advice. And unfortunately it is 

 just as true in the education of children as in every 

 thing else, that it is almost as harmful to be a virtu 

 ous fool as a knave. So often throughout our social 

 structure from the wealthiest down to the poorest 

 you see the queer fatuity of the man or the woman 

 which makes them save their children temporary 

 discomfort, temporary unpleasantness, at the cost of 

 future destruction ; you see a great many men, and I 

 am sorry to say a great many women, who say, "I 

 have had to work hard ; my boy or my girl shall not 

 do anything." I have seen it in every rank. I have 

 heard the millionaire say, "I have had to work all 

 my life to make money, let my boy spend it." It 

 would be better for the boy never to have been born 

 than to be brought up on that principle. On the 

 other hand, I have seen the overworked drudge, the 

 laborer's wife, who said, "Well, I have had to work 

 my heart out all my days; my daughters shall be 

 ladies" ; and her conception of her daughters being 

 ladies was to have them sit around useless and in 

 competent, unable to do anything, brought up to be 

 discontented cumberers of the earth's surface. As 

 Abraham Lincoln said : "There is a deal of human 

 nature in mankind." Fundamentally, virtues and 

 faults are just the same in the millionaire and the 

 day laborer. The man or the woman who seeks to 

 bring up his or her children with the idea that their 

 happiness is, secured by teaching them to avoid diffi 

 culties is doing them a cruel wrong. To bring up 



