impossible of attainment.

The progress of the miner has also been great. Of coal our production
was small; now many millions of tons are mined annually. So with iron,
which formed scarcely an appreciable part of our products half a century
ago, we now produce more than the world consumed at the beginning of
our national existence. Lead, zinc, and copper, from being articles
of import, we may expect to be large exporters of in the near future.
The development of gold and silver mines in the United States and
Territories has not only been remarkable, but has had a large influence
upon the business of all commercial nations. Our merchants in the last
hundred years have had a success and have established a reputation for
enterprise, sagacity, progress, and integrity unsurpassed by peoples of
older nationalities. This "good name" is not confined to their homes,
but goes out upon every sea and into every port where commerce enters.
With equal pride we can point to our progress in all of the learned
professions.

As we are now about to enter upon our second centennial--commencing our
manhood as a nation--it is well to look back upon the past and study
what will be best to preserve and advance our future greatness. From the
fall of Adam for his transgression to the present day no nation has ever
been free from threatened danger to its prosperity and happiness. We
should look to the dangers threatening us, and remedy them so far as
lies in our power. We are a republic whereof one man is as good as
another before the law. Under such a form of government it is of the
greatest importance that all should be possessed of education and
intelligence enough to cast a vote with a right understanding of
its meaning. A large association of ignorant men can not for any
considerable period oppose a successful resistance to tyranny and
oppression from the educated few, but will inevitably sink into
acquiescence to the will of intelligence, whether directed by the
demagogue or by priestcraft. Hence the education of the masses becomes
of the first necessity for the preservation of our institutions. They
are worth preserving, because they have secured the greatest good to
the greatest proportion of the population of any form of government yet
devised. All other forms of government approach it just in proportion
to the general diffusion of education and independence of thought and
action. As the primary step, therefore, to our advancement in al