glorious history. Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat. If in 1861 the men who loved the Union had believed that peace was the end of all things, and war and strife the worst of all things, and had acted up to their belief, we would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives, we would have saved hundreds of millions of dollars. Moreover, besides saving all the blood and treasure we then lavished, we would have prevented the heartbreak of many women, the dissolution of many homes, and we would have spared the country those months of gloom and shame when it seemed as if our armies marched only to defeat. We could have avoided all this suffering simply by shrinking from strife. And if we had thus avoided it, we would have shown that we were weaklings, and that we were unfit to stand among the great nations of the earth. Thank God for the iron in the blood of our fathers, the men who upheld the wisdom of Lincoln, and bore sword or rifle in the armies of Grant! Let us, the children of the men who proved themselves equal to the mighty days, let us, the children of the men who carried the great Civil War to a triumphant conclusion, praise the God of our fathers that the ignoble counsels of peace were rejected; that the suffering and loss, the blackness of sorrow and despair, were unflinchingly faced, and the years of strife endured; for in the end the slave was freed, the Union restored, and the mighty American republic placed once more as a helmeted queen among nations.'

I preach to you, then, my countrymen, that our country calls not for the life of ease but for the life of strenuous endeavor. The twentieth century looms before us big with the fate of many nations. If we stand idly by, if we seek merely swollen, slothful ease and ignoble peace, if we shrink from the hard contests where men must win at hazard of their lives and at the risk of all they hold dear, then the bolder and stronger peoples will pass us by, and will win for themselves the domination of the world. Let us therefore boldly face the life of strife, resolute to do our duty well and manfully; resolute to uphold righteousness by deed and by word; resolute to be both honest and brave, to serve high ideals, yet to use practical methods. Above all, let us shrink from no strife, moral or physical, within or without the nation, provided we are certain that the strife is justified, for it is only through strife, through hard and dangerous endeavor, that we shall ultimately win the goal of true national greatness.1

II

YOUR work is hard. Do you suppose I mention that because I pity you? No; not a bit. I don't pity any man who does hard work worth doing. I admire him. I pity the creature who does n't work, at whichever end of the social scale he may regard himself as being. The law of worthy work well done is the law of successful American life. I believe in play, too-play, and play hard while you play; but don't make the mistake of thinking that that

1 Address before the Hamilton Club, Chicago, April 10, 1899. From The Strenuous Life. Copyright, 1900. The Century Company, publishers.

is the main thing. The work is what counts, and if a man does his work well and it is worth doing, then it matters but little in which line that work is done; the man is a good American citizen. If he does his work in slipshod fashion, then no matter what kind of work it is, he is a poor American citizen.1

1 Speech to the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, Chattanooga, Tenn., September 8, 1902.

III. TENDERNESS AND STRENGTH

I

I WANT to see you game, boys; I want to see you brave and manly; and I also want to see you gentle and tender. In other words, you should make it your object to be the right kind of boys at home, so that your family will feel a genuine regret, instead of a sense of relief, when you stay away; and at the same time you must be able to hold your own in the outside world. You cannot do that if you have not manliness, courage in you. It does no good to have either of those two sets of qualities if you lack the other. I do not care how nice a little boy you are, how pleasant at home, if when you are out you are afraid of other little boys lest they be rude to you; for if so you will not be a very happy boy nor grow up a very useful man. When a boy grows up I want him to be of such a type that when somebody wrongs him he will feel a good, healthy desire to show the wrong-doers that he cannot be wronged with impunity. I like to have the man who is a citizen feel, when a wrong is done to the community by any one, when there is an exhibition of corruption or betrayal of trust, or demagogy or violence, or brutality, not that he is shocked and horrified and would like to go home; but I want to have him feel the determination to put the wrong-doer down, to make the man who does wrong aware that the decent man is not only his superior in decency, but his superior in strength; not necessarily physical strength, but strength of character, the kind of strength that makes a good and forceful citizen.

The place in which each of you should try to be most useful is his own home, and each of you should wish for and should practice in order to have courage and strength, so that they can be used in protecting the gentle, in protecting the weak, against those who would wrong weakness and gentleness. The boy who will maltreat either a smaller child, a little boy or a little girl, or a dumb animal, is just about the meanest boy that you can find anywhere in the world. You should be brave and able to hold your own just because you should be able to put down such a bully. It should be your pride to be the champion of the weak. You will find a certain number of boys who have strength and who pride themselves in it, and who misuse it. The boy who will torture something harmless, who will oppress the boy or girl who is weak, or do wrong to those who cannot resist, almost always proves to have a weak streak in him, and not to have the stuff in him that would make him stand up to an equal foe under punishment. That boy has not real courage, real strength; and much though I dislike seeing a boy who is timid, who is afraid, who cannot hold his own, I dislike infinitely more, I abhor, the boy who uses strength and courage to oppress those who cannot help themselves.1

II

[MANLINESS and courage] - these qualities are allimportant, but they are not all-sufficient. It is necessary absolutely to have them. No nation can rise to greatness without them, but by them alone no nation will ever

1 Address at the Graduating Exercises of Friends' School, Washington, May 24, 1907.