"We who are about to die salute thee!" The heart swells to think
of it. But it swells, too, to think that, day by day, thousands
upon thousands of little children stretch out their hands toward
that Flag and pledge allegiance to it. "We who are about to
LIVE salute thee!"
It is no mere chance affair that all our federal buildings should
be so ugly and so begrudged, and that our school-houses should be
so beautiful architecturally - the one nearest my house is built
from plans that took the first prize at the Paris Exposition, in
competition with the whole world - so well-appointed, and so far
from being grudged that the complaint is, that there are not enough
of them.
That So-and-so should be the President, and such-and-such a party
have control is but a game we play at, amateurs and professionals;
the serious business is, that in this country no child, how poor
soever it may be, shall have the slightest let or hindrance in the
equal chance with every other child to learn to read, and write,
and cipher, and do raffia-work.
It is a new thing with us to have splendid school-houses. After
all, the norm, as you might say, is still "The Old Red School-house."
You must recollect how hard the struggle is for the poor farmer,
with wheat only a dollar a bushel, and eggs only six for a quarter;
with every year or so taxes of three and sometimes four dollars
on an eighty-acre farm grinding him to earth.
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