nd be extended to other things, it will end in hopeless
dependence. The teacher of the old school who showed his pupil the way
out of every difficulty did not perceive that he was generating an
attitude of mind greatly militating against success in life. The
modern instructor, however, induces his pupil to solve his
difficulties himself; believes that in so doing he is preparing him to
meet the difficulties which, when he goes into the world, there will
be no one to help him through; and finds confirmation for this belief
in the fact that a great proportion of the most successful men are
self-made.

[Footnote 46: From the "Essays, Moral, Political, and Esthetic." By
permission of D. Appleton & Co.]

Well, is it not obvious that this relationship between discipline and
success holds good nationally? Are not nations made of men; and are
not men subject to the same laws of modification in their adult as in
their early years? Is it not true of the drunkard, that each carouse
adds a thread to his bonds? of the trader, that each acquisition
strengthens the wish for acquisitions? of the pauper, that the more
you assist him the more he wants? of the busy man, that the more he
has to do the more he can do? And does it not follow that if every
individual is subject to this process of adaptation to conditions, a
whole nation must be so--that just in proportion as its members are
little helped by extraneous power they will become self-helping, and
in proportion as they are much helped they will become helpless? What
folly is it to ignore these results because they are not direct, and
not immediately visible. Tho slowly wrought out, they are inevitable.
We can no more elude the laws of human development than we can elude
the law of gravitation; and so long as they hold true must these
effects occur.

If we are asked in what special directions this alleged helplessness,
entailed by much state superintendence, shows itself, we reply that it
is seen in a retardation of all social growths requiring
self-confidence in the people--in a timidity that fears all
difficulties not before encountered--in a thoughtless contentment with
things as they are. Let any one, after duly watching the rapid
evolution going on in England, where men have been comparatively
little helped by governments--or better still, after contemplating the
unparalleled progress of the United States, which is peopled by
self-made men and the recent descendants of self