NOTE. A TALK TO SCHOOL CHILDREN WENDELL PHILLIPS - This speech was delivered July 23, 1865, in Music Hall, Boston. Boys, you will not be moved to action by starvation and want. Where will you get the motive power? You will have the spur of ambition to be worthy of the fathers who 5 have given you these opportunities. Remember, boys, what fame it is that you bear up, this old name of Boston! A certain well-known poet says it is the hub of the universe. Well, this is a gentle and generous satire. 10 In Revolutionary days they talked of the Boston Revolution. When Samuel Johnson wrote his work against the American colonies, it was Boston he ridiculed. When the king could not sleep overnight, he got up and muttered "Boston." When the proclamation of pardon was 15 issued, the only two excepted were the two Boston fanatics, -John Hancock and Sam Adams. But what did Boston do? She sent Hancock to Philadelphia to write his name on the Declaration of Independence in letters large enough, almost, for the king 20 to read on the other side of the ocean. Now, boys, this is my lesson to you to-day. You cannot be as good as your fathers, unless you are better. You have your fathers' example, fathers' example, good is not enough. advantages they have accumulated, and to be only as You must be better. You must copy only the spirit of your fathers, and not their imperfections. 5 There was an old Boston merchant, years ago, who wanted a set of china made in Peking. You know that Boston men sixty years ago looked at both sides of a cent before they spent it, and if they earned twelve cents they would save eleven. He could not spare a whole 10 plate, so he sent a cracked one, and when he received the set there was a crack in every piece. The Chinese had imitated the pattern exactly. Now, boys, do not imitate us. Be better than we are or there will be a great many cracks. We have invented 15 a telegraph, but what of that? I expect, if I live forty years, to see a telegraph that will send messages without wire, both ways at the same time. You are bound to go ahead of us. The old London physician said the way to be well was to live on sixpence, and earn it. That is 20 education under the law of necessity. We cannot give you that. Underneath you is the ever watchful hand of city culture and wealth. All the motive we can give is the name you bear. Bear it nobly! A well-known poet: Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes. The London physician: Dr. John Abernethy. 10 15 20 OCTOBER'S BRIGHT BLUE WEATHER1 HELEN HUNT JACKSON HELEN HUNT JACKSON, who is known to many readers as H. H., was born in Massachusetts in 1831. Much of her life was spent in the West, especially in Colorado. She wrote several short stories and some excellent verse. "Ramona,” a story of Indian life, is her best-known book. Mrs. 5 Jackson died in 1885. O suns and skies and clouds of June, And flowers of June together, Ye cannot rival for one hour October's bright blue weather, When loud the bumblebee makes haste, And golden-rod is dying fast, And lanes with grapes are fragrant; When gentians roll their fringes tight When on the ground red apples lie 1 Copyright, 1873, 1886, 1892, by Roberts Brothers. When all the lovely, wayside things Their white-winged seeds are sowing, And in the fields, still green and fair, Late aftermaths are growing; When springs run low, and on the brooks, In idle, golden freighting, Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush Of woods, for winter waiting; When comrades seek sweet country haunts, By twos and threes together, And count like misers hour by hour, O suns and skies and flowers of June, aftermath: a second crop of grass. 5 10 15 THE OASIS1 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS, an American author and orator, was born in Providence, R.I., in 1824. He came of a long line of brave and independent thinkers, and from his earliest manhood he was never afraid to take the unpopular side. Truth, honor, and courtesy were exemplified in 5 him. Mr. Curtis died in 1892. There came suddenly a strip of green land. It was like a branch of flowers yet fresh, drifting out to a ship at sea. The birds sang clearly in the early morning, high over our heads flashing in the bright air. 10 The damp sand was delicately printed with the tracks of birds. The desert lay around us in low hillocks, like the long billows of a retiring ocean. The air blew fresh and sweet from the west;-fresh and sweet, for it was the breath of the Mediterranean.. 15 And suddenly we came upon green land. The country was like a rolling pasture. Grass and dandelions and a myriad familiar wild flowers lay like wreaths of welcome at our feet. There were clumps of palms and single acacias; the cactus, also, that we call the Indian fig, shapeless, prickly, but full of the sun, and fat with promise. The wind blew, the birds sang, the trees waved. They were the outposts of life, whence it nodded and beckoned 1 From "The Howadji in Syria." Harper & Brothers, Publishers. |