Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1882-09-14
What is g. Nation fer?


ton differently, and the answer of
each is the key to its history. Had
you asked an acient Greek he would
probably have told YOU that nation
was itself an end. The nation, he
would have told you, was the ultimate
end, and that the citizen was made for
the benefit of the state of which he
was a member Plato proposed to
breed children as he would have bred
dogs, or horses. with reference to their
making soldiers or citizens. IF you
were to ask an Engl.shman, and you
had got from him his exact opinion on
this subject, he would probably tell
you that nation was intended for the
development of the character of a gen
tleman. l have no doubt the English
man is learning something. He has
learned much since our Fathers shook
off the dust Of their feet as they left
England, since they bafled his at
tempt to subject Us unrepresented to
his will, and since at a later day we
made it uncomfortable for him to bully
US on the high seas, or since he has
found the cost Of too active sympathy
with rebel attempts at our destruction.
The English gentleman, to do him full
justice, will be a brave and honest
man, and means that England shall be
a brave and noble nation, and so a fit
ting country for the English gentleman
10 govern. He will, it is quite likely,
be interested in social questions, per-
.haps in the labor question. But he
will expect that his ancestral hall and
stately trees will 90 down in his name
fir ON eldest son to eldest, though a
thousand paupers starve in their how
els, and it is for this, to his mind, that
England exists and is great by land
and by sea.
If you were to ask Frenchman he
would tell you the state exists for
glory-for military glory. 1.-The cock
Of France" says the song, "is the
cock Of glory" When the French
soldier is wounded or sick in the SER
vice of France he is flung aside to die
like weed by the wall l heard a
distinguished surgeon say, year ago,
that France had not improved in the
care for the wounded Of her armies
for hundred years.
If you were to ask a German he
would tell you that the object of the
state was strength, not military
strength merely, but. strength lie
considers the end of human life to be
the building up Of strong empire.
For this has Germany introduced her
admirable systems of education, gen
eral and technical. When somebody
complained to Bismarck of the de
struction of life IN the late war, he
said, "Who ever heard of making an
omelette without breaking the egg ?"
The object of the Republic differs
from all these. The object of the
Republic is not strength, not wealth,
not glory, not empire, it is the aggre-
gate worth of the people. 1t is per-
sonal not material You value your
neighbor not for his money, not for
his physical strength, not for his
genius, but for the qualities of cour-
age, generosity, love, honor, truth !;
and you value your state just so far as
it is an aggregate of persons possessing
these qualities and just 50 far as it is
the means to promote and increase
them. Now will anybody deny that it
is woman on whom we depend to edu-
cate and foster the moral qualities Of
children, and who possess the faculty
of fostering and educating children so
largely, that it is admitted that it is
rarely that child who loses his moth
er IN early life, grows up possessing
them? The loss of a father is unim-
portant in comparison to that of a
mother, who instills all these qualities
in the aggregate of families and indi-
viduals that go to make up the Re
public?
So [ say that the womanhood of
America should have its choice recog
nized and weighed just as that Of the
manhood of America is recognized and
weighed in governing the state
Words by Senator Hoar
A writer in the Grand Rapids Trib-
7,3e Sneers st Hon 7 StephpnSOn he