Читать книгу Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader - Benj. N. Martin - Страница 49

No sagacity can foretell what characters shall be developed, or what parts performed, by these boys and girls who throng our streets, and sport in our fields. In their tender breasts are concealed the germs, in their little hands are lodged the weapons, of a nation's overthrow or glory. Would it not, then, be madness, would it not be a sort of political suicide, for the commonwealth to be unconcerned what direction their infant powers shall take, or into what habits their budding affections shall ripen? or will it be disputed that the civil authority has a right to take care, by a paternal interference on behalf of the children, that the next generation shall not prostrate in an hour, whatever has been consecrated to truth, to virtue, and to happiness by the generations that are past?

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=Timothy Dwight, 1752–1817.= (Manual, pp. 479, 504.)

From "Travels in New England," &c.