may be and always ought to be a laudable one. It is the ambition of every parent for his child. It is emphaticially an American ambition; at once the national vice and the national virtue. It is the mindspring of activity; the driving wheel of industry; the spur to intellectual and moral progress. It gives the individual energy; the nation push. It makes the difference between a people that are a stream and a people that are a pool; between America and China. It makes us at once active and restless; industrious and overworked; generous and greedy. When it is great, it is a virtue; when it is petty, it is a vice."
---Lyman Abbot.