Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 75

A Glimpse of the Dawn

A Glimpse of the Dawn,

and that keeps our faces in the right direction We have seen and do see growing around us evidences of the fruits of our sowing and of our working; and, although we are not able to measure, as we would like to measure, the greatest results of our labour, we at least are satisfied to know that many men and many women are better men and better women for the work some of us have done. However incapable and however short of real power we may be, page 5 we, at least, have used what power we possessed, and no men could do more. (Applause.) I come to your country—and I know you are very proud of it (applause), and you have reason to be proud of it—and I see men of health here and men who are happier than their brothers in the Old Country; I see women who are bonnie and bright; I see your children larger, with more bone and with more sinew, and with more laugh—their shout is louder than ours, because I suppose of your pure air and the better laws that govern your country. (Applause.) The possession of those laws is a great possession indeed, and one to be prized; but with all your prosperity—and I see that your prosperity is the outcome, is the growth of the great impulses of nature and of your bountiful soil—the lessons of the Old Country are so ingrained in me that I see that unless there is a great economic change, unless the people advance, unless their intellects grow, their reasons expand, and their ambitions increase with the increase of their country's wealth,