No. L] CULTURE OF CIVIC VIRTUES. 31 



the shining metal by their use of it, and what is more im- 

 portant to remember is this, that the chink of Fortunatus' 

 gold has never yet dulled the ear of the body of the Amer- 

 ican people to the call of public duty. 



Goethe has made reverence the beginning of science and 

 philosophy and religion. One of the greatest thinkers of 

 our time, .lames Martineau, has made it "supreme among 

 the springs of action." Now democracy, certainly in its 

 present state of development, as we see it to-day is not a 

 good school for the culture of a reverent spirit. Democ- 

 racy is doing and has done in the past a great work in de- 

 stroying harmful social distinctions, but there is a tendency 

 to carry this so far that man ceases to win the respect that 

 is due to him as man ; laws and institutions which ought 

 to be held in high respect lose their moral power, and su- 

 perior education and abilities lose the power for good that 

 is by right their peculiar privilege. All things and all men 

 are reduced to the same level, and that a low one. The 

 spirit that democracy often engenders is well stated by a 

 miner in a far western town when he describes Boston as 

 "a city in whose streets respectability stalked about un- 

 checked." 



Human laws are not perfect ; they partake of the limi- 

 tations of the makers ; but, nevertheless, good order in 

 society and a good measure of justice between man and man 

 have their origin in reverence for law. Suspend the opera- 

 tions of law, and civilization would cease to be ; barbarism 

 would draw its dark pall over human life and all its great 

 and cherished interests and its cultivated affections. As 

 that personification of Yankee wit and wisdom, Hosea 

 Biglow, has said : — 



The plough, the ax, the mill, 

 All kin's o' labor an 1 all kin's o' skill, 

 Would be a rabbit in a wile-cat's claw, 

 Eft warn't for thet slow critter, 'stablished law ; 

 Onsettle thet, an 1 all the world goes whiz, 

 A screw's gut loose in everythin 1 there is. 



To realize the value of law is one of the most important 

 objects to be aimed at in the education of an American citi- 



