ideas,--persistence in such a conception is admirably designed to
deprive American life of any promise at all. The better future which
Americans propose to build is nothing if not an idea which must in
certain essential respects emancipate them from their past. American
history contains much matter for pride and congratulation, and much
matter for regret and humiliation. On the whole, it is a past of which
the loyal American has no reason to feel ashamed, chiefly because it has
throughout been made better than it was by the vision of a better
future; and the American of to-day and to-morrow must remain true to
that traditional vision. He must be prepared to sacrifice to that
traditional vision even the traditional American ways of realizing it.
Such a sacrifice is, I believe, coming to be demanded; and unless it is
made, American life will gradually cease to have any specific Promise.

The only fruitful promise of which the life of any individual or any
nation can be possessed, is a promise determined by an ideal. Such a
promise is to be fulfilled, not by sanguine anticipations, not by a
conservative imitation of past achievements, but by laborious,
single-minded, clear-sighted, and fearless work. If the promising career
of any individual is not determined by a specific and worthy purpose, it
rapidly drifts into a mere pursuit of success; and even if such a
pursuit is successful, whatever promise it may have had, is buried in
the grave of its triumph. So it is with a nation. If its promise is
anything more than a vision of power and success, that addition must
derive its value from a purpose; because in the moral world the future
exists only as a workshop in which a purpose is to be realized. Each of
the several leading European nations is possessed of a specific purpose
determined for the most part by the pressure of historical
circumstances; but the American nation is committed to a purpose which
is not merely of historical manufacture. It is committed to the