which turn out to be better than at first they seemed. The unknown takes
on a friendly guise and awakens a pleasant curiosity. That is the
experience of generations of pioneers and prospectors. They have found
a continent full of resources awaking men of courage and industry. The
opportunities were there; all that was needed was the ability to
recognize them when they appeared in disguise.


III

And the human problem has been the same as the material one. Europe has
sent to America not the finished products of her schools and her courts,
but millions of people for whom she had no room. They were in the rough;
they had to be made over into a new kind of citizen. This material has
often been of the most unpromising appearance. It has often seemed to
superficial observers that little could be made of it. But the attempt
has been made. And those who have worked with it, putting skill and
patience into their work, have been agreeably surprised. They have come
to see the highest possibilities in the commonest lumps of clay.

The satisfaction that is taken in the common man is not in what he
is at the present moment, but in what he has shown himself capable of
becoming. Give him a chance and all the graces may be his. The American
idealist admits that many of his fellow citizens may be rather dreary
brethren, but so were many of the kings of whom nothing is remembered
but their names and dates. Only now and then is one seen who is every
inch a king. But such a person is a proof of what may be accomplished.
It may take a long time for the rank and file to catch up with their
leaders. But where the few are to-day the many will be to-morrow; for
they are all travelling the same road.