[229]
copy only the spirit of your fathers, and not their imperfections.
There was an old Boston merchant, years ago, who wanted a set of china made in Pekin.
You know that Boston men sixty years ago looked at both sides of a cent before they spent it, and if they earned twelve cents they would save eleven.
He could not spare a whole plate, so he sent a cracked one, and when he received the set, there was a crack in every piece.
The Chinese had imitated the pattern exactly.
Now, boys, do not imitate us, or there will be a great many cracks.
Be better than we. We have invented a telegraph, but what of that?
I expect, if I live forty years, to see a telegraph that will send messages without wire, both ways at the same time.
If you do not invent it, you are not so good as we are. You are bound to go ahead of us. The old London physician said the way to be well was to live on a sixpence, and earn it. That is education under the laws of necessity.
We cannot give you that.
Underneath you is the ever-watchful hand of city culture and wealth.
All the motive we can give you is the name you bear.
Bear it nobly!
I was in the West where they partly love and partly hate the Yankee.
A man undertook to explain the difference between a watch made in Boston and one made in Chicago.
He asked me what I thought of it. I answered him as a Boston man should: “We always do what we undertake to do thoroughly.”
That is Boston.
Boston has set the example of doing; do better.
Sir Robert Peel said in the last hours of his life: “I have left the Queen's service; I have held the highest offices in the gift of the Crown; and now, going out of public life [he had just removed bread from the tax-list], the happiest thought I have is that when the poor man breaks his bread in his cottage, he thanks God that I ”
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.