We have seen it in the grimy ravine by old Fort Duquesne, where, like the
titanium which, in what way no chemist knows, increases the tensile
strength of its steel, this practical idealism gives promise of a
democracy that will stand a greater stress and strain.
We have seen it in the plans for the future of the city that has risen
from the onion field along the Chicago River, where Marquette's spirit
lived in a sick body through a bitter winter.
We have seen it in the setting apart of the white acres in every township
for the training of the child of to-morrow, in the higher school that
stands in thousands of towns and cities throughout the valley, and in the
university supported of every State in that valley, such as that which we
saw beside the falls where Hennepin tells of the Indian sacrificing his
beaver-skin to the river spirit.
And, finally, we have seen the men of to-day, rising to that highest
definition of a people--the invisible multitude of spirits, the nation of
yesterday and of to-morrow--forgetting their interests of the moment,
listening to the men of the universities speaking out of the past, and
planning for the conservation of what they have left to them of the
resources of the land for the "interests of mankind"--the true "Children
of Always.
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