15 



humble laborer seeks his home at nightfall, a more majestic arch 

 of triumph soars above him, and he marches bravely forward, 

 conscious of a day of duty, and of successful toil, under that eter- 

 nal arch, which was builded Avhen the foundations of the great 

 deep were laid. The sunset flings silken banners of crimson and 

 gold along its stately sides, and the constellations from its deep 

 blue vaults hang garlands there, in clusters of those holy stars 

 which are the perennial flowers of heaven. 



Our fathers had this lesson of life, this lesson of self-respect, 

 this lesson of the value, the nobility, the dignity of labor, taught 

 to them in earnest long ago. The wide ocean divided them from 

 royal power, and from the bonds of wealth and rank and custom ; 

 the woods and the forests taught them to work if they would live ; 

 taught them, too, that the man who changed the wild-wood and 

 the dreary marsh to happy home, had done soynetldng, was a 

 man^ Avas better and more to be respected than the rich man, 

 who might purchase or inherit it ; taught them that the tangled 

 bushes and the rank weeds and the grey moss would grow over 

 the man who did not work — taught them that the man who could 

 rule his farm, could rule himself ; and, finally, wheji they came to 

 open their eyes and look into the matter, taught them all at once 

 that they were the real kings, and had been kings all the while, 

 not somebody's son over the sea. 



This was the democracy which nature then taught to them, and 

 repeats to us to-day. I love to remember what naturalists have 

 told us, that the symbol of industry, the " busy bee," was unknown 

 to America before our Fathers came here. The Indians called it 

 the " fly of the English," and learned to dread its approach. 

 Even now, in the western prairies, the bee is the scout and the 

 pioneer of civilization. 



Let us complain no more, then, of labor and toil ; let us talk no 

 more of disadvantages and opportunities and poverty, and self-made 

 men. The man who does not labor has no right here ; he is in the 

 way, the busy world crowds him out of the path ; opportunities 

 and advantages are all around us, but they are for the men who 

 wake up, and open their eyes in the morning, not for fops and 

 sluggards. To be born poor is a blessing, not a curse ; the only 

 real poverty is inside the man, not outside, and all men who are 

 made at all, are self-made men. Schools are good tools, and col- 



