education is aiming at. There is evidence that the ancients of New
England used to birch their boys, but after independence had been
fought for and won, higher aims prevailed. The Puritan then believed
that his children were born to a destiny far grander than that of any
other children on the face of the earth; the treatment accorded to
them was therefore to be different. The fundamental idea of American
life was to be "Freedom," and the definition of "Freedom" by a
learned American is, "The power which necessarily belongs to the
self-conscious being of determining his actions in view of the
highest, the universal good, and thereby of gradually realising in
himself the eternal divine perfection." The definition seems a
little hazy, but the workings of great minds are often unintelligible
to common people. "The American citizen must be morally autonomous,
regarding all institutions as servants, not as masters. So far man
has been for the most part a thrall. The true American must worship
the inner God recognised as his own deepest and eternal self, not an
outer God regarded as something different from himself."

Lucifer is said to have entertained a similar idea. He would not be
a thrall, and the result as described by the republican Milton was
truly disastrous:

"Him the Almighty Power
Hurl'd headlong
down
to bottomless perdition
Region of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell."

The manner in which the American citizen is to be made "morally