Living in History
tutored ears as it sounds in the ears of men who have counted the cost by which it has been preserved through the centuries. Unless children are permitted to know the utmost peril which has threatened, and which threatens, the freedom of nations, how can they conceive of its value? And what is the worth of teaching which does not rate the gift of freedom above all earthly benefactions? How can justice live save by the will of freemen? Of what avail are civic virtues that are not the virtues of the free? Pericles bade the Athenians to bear reverently in mind the Greeks who had died for Greece. "Make these men your examples, and be well assured that happiness comes by freedom, and freedom by stoutness of heart." Perhaps if American boys bear reverently in mind the men who died for America, it will help them too to be stout of heart, and "worthy patriots, dear to God."
In the remote years of my childhood,
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