Charlemagne, Gustavus Adolphus, John Hampden, William the Silent, Peter
of Russia, and Frederick the Great, only to find him a nobler human type
than any one of them, more complete in his nature, more happy in his
cause, and more fortunate in the issues of his career. They are taught
to see in him a soldier whose sword wrought only mercy and justice for
mankind; a statesman who steadied a remarkable generation of public men
by his mental poise and exalted them by his singleness of heart; and a
ruler whose exercise of power established for the time on earth a
righteous government by all and for all.

And what shall I say on behalf of the three hundred and sixty thousand
teachers of the United States? None of them are rich or famous; most of
them are poor, retiring, and unnoticed; but it is they who are building
a perennial monument to Washington. It is they who give him a
million-tongued fame. They make him live again in the young hearts of
successive generations, and fix his image there as the American ideal of
a public servant. It is through the schools and colleges and the
national literature that the heroes of any people win lasting renown;
and it is through these same agencies that a nation is molded into the
likeness of its heroes.

The commemoration of any one great event in the life of Washington and
of the United States is well, but it is nothing compared with the
incessant memorial of him which the schools and colleges of the country
maintain from generation to generation. What a reward is Washington's!
What an influence is his and will be! One mind and will transfused by
sympathetic instruction into millions; one life pattern for all public
men, teaching what greatness is and what the pathway to undying fame!

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