“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is
  To have a thankless child.”

But it is not my purpose to speak of thankless children; I shall rather make application of the rebuke to the line of work in which I have been engaged.  For some thirty years my time, by fate or fortune, has been devoted largely to the study and discussion of the problems of government, and I have had occasion to note the apathy and indifference of citizens.  I have seen reforms delayed and the suffering of the people prolonged by lack of vigilance.  Let us, therefore, consider together for a little while some of the priceless gifts that come to us because we live under the Stars and Stripes—­gifts so valuable that they cannot be estimated in figures or described in language—­gifts which are received and enjoyed by many without any sense of obligation, and without any resolve to repay the debt due to society.

These gifts are many, but we shall have time for only three.  The first is education; it is a gift rather than an acquirement.  It comes into our lives when we are too young to decide such questions for ourselves.  I sometimes meet a man who calls himself “self-made,” and I always want to cross-examine him.  I would ask him when he began to make himself, and how he laid the foundations of his greatness.  As a matter of fact, we inherit more than we ourselves can add.  It means more to be born of a race with centuries of civilization back of it than anything that we ourselves can contribute.  And, next to that which we inherit, comes that which enters our lives through the environment of youth.  In this country the child is so surrounded by opportunities, that it enters school as early as the law will permit.  It does not go to school, it is sent to school, and we are so anxious that it shall lose no time that, if there is ever a period in the child’s life when the mother is uncertain as to its exact age, this is the time.  I heard of a little boy, who, when asked how old he was, replied, “I am five on the train, seven in school and six at home.”  The child is pushed through grade after grade, and, according to the statistics, a little more than ninety per cent, of the children drop out of school before they are old enough to decide educational questions for themselves.  They are scarcely more than fourteen.

Taking the country over, a little less than one in ten of the children who enter our graded school ever enter high school, and not quite one in fifty enter college or university.  As many who enter college do not complete the course, I am not far from the truth when I say that only about one young man in one hundred continues his education until he reaches the age—­twenty-one—­when the law assumes that his reason is mature.  I am emphasizing these statistics in order to show that we are indebted to others more than to ourselves for our education.  That which we do would not be done but for what others have already done.  Even those who secure an education in spite of difficulties have received from some one the idea that makes them appreciate the value of an education.