Teddy Roosevelt

From all our citizens we have a right to expect good citizenship; but most of all from those who have received most; most of all from those who have had the training of body, of mind, of soul, which comes from association in and with a…

Where the State has bestowed education the man who accepts it must be content to accept it merely as a charity unless he returns it to the State in full, in the shape of good citizenship.

Each one of us then who has an education, school or college, has obtained something from the community at large for which he or she has not paid, and no self-respecting man or woman is content to rest permanently under such an obligation.

And each one of us who has obtained an education has obtained something for which he or she has not personally paid.

From the lowest grade of the public school to the highest form of university training, education in this country is at the disposal of every man, every woman, who chooses to work for and obtain it.

Although we talk a good deal about what the widespread education of this country means, I question if many of us deeply consider its meaning.

Facts tend to become commonplace, and we tend to lose sight of their importance when once they are ingrained into the life of the Nation.

Besides applauding now see to it that the navy is so built up that the men of the next generation will have something to applaud also.

The best ships and the best guns do not count unless they are handled aright and aimed aright, and the best men can not thus handle the one nor aim the other if they do not have ample practice.

We could not have begun to fight that battle if we had not been for so many years making ready the navy.

We come here as patriots remembering that our party lines stop at the water’s edge.

The personnel contained as fine material as there was to be found in the world but the ships and the guns were antiquated, and it would have been a wicked absurdity to have sent them against the ships of any good power.

And good though it is to erect this monument, it is better still to go on with the building up of the navy which gave the monument to us, and which, if we ever give it a fair chance, can be relied upon to rise level to our needs.

To dedicate the monument would be an empty and foolish thing if we accompanied it by an abandonment of our national policy of building up the navy.

If we wish our children to have the chance of dedicating monuments of this kind in the event of war we must see that the navy is made ready in advance.

We to-day dedicate this monument because those who went before us had the wisdom to make ready for the victory.

We can not live up to these teachings as we should; for in the presence of infinite might and infinite wisdom, the strength of the strongest man is but weakness, and the keenest of mortal eyes see but dimly.

Fear the Lord and walk in his ways” and “Love thy neighbor as thyself”—when we practice these two precepts, the reign of social and civic righteousness will be close at hand.

We ask that these Associations, and the men and women who take part in them, practice the Christian doctrines which are preached from every true pulpit.

Every ounce of effort for good in your Associations is part of the ceaseless war against the traits which produce such men.

What we need in our leaders and teachers is help in suppressing such feelings, help in arousing and directing the feelings that are their extreme opposites.

It will not be any the less fruitful of wrong and misery if, as is so often the case with evil motives, it adopts some high-sounding alias.

To break the Tenth Commandment is no more moral now than it has been for the past thirty centuries.

In the words of Lowell, it is far safer to adopt “All men up” than “Some men down” for a motto.

It ought not to be necessary for me to warn you against mere sentimentality, against the philanthropy and charity which are not merely insufficient but harmful.