April 10

The tendency that reaches through all the regions of thought and of action; that is filling all our schools and colleges, and making them burst their bounds; that is distracting statesmen and making them wonder how their poor plans

can keep pace with the great designs which are moving in the world,—is it not this: that the things which have been called the portion of the few shall more and more, and at last wholly, be the possession of every man who in his own true way will seek for their possession? The great democracy, the belief that man as man has a right to the privileges of his manhood; that they are not confined to some little select few, of peculiar nature, of peculiar education, nor by them to be distributed with niggardly hand to those who will not be content at all without them; but that they are the possession of all mankind by right; that what man can be, what it is the nature of man in this world to be, man may be; and that it is in the nature of man in this world to be higher than he is and to come to loftier conditions than those which he has dared to know,—is not that the great principle that is to-day pervading and changing all human life?