The founders of the Republic could only learn from their errors, but it is their great merit that they had the ability to profit in the stern school of experience, of which Franklin has said that it is a "dear school, but fools will learn in no other.
This quote highlights the importance of learning from past mistakes in the founding of the Republic.
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It discusses a great malaise of our age, for which, I fear, no written Constitution, however wise, is an adequate remedy.
Plato records a saying of Socrates that the dog is a true philosopher because philosophy is love of knowledge, and a dog, while growling at strangers, always welcomes the friends that he knows.
Even such masters of classical prose as Francis Parkman, perhaps the greatest historian who has used the English language as his vehicle, are almost unknown to the average reader.
It speaks well for the honour of the delegates that although their differences became so acute as to lead at times to bitter expressions, neither side divulged them to the outside public.
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