They live in the midst of the excitement of ever-recurring elections, of speculation, of financial schemes and commercial enterprises. It is an unrestful, feverish, practical life, in which all the strong natures are thinking of doing something, of gaining something,--a life in the market-place, where high thought and noble conduct are all but impossible, where the effort to make one's self a man, instead of striving to get so many thousands of money, would seem ridiculous. It is a life of inventions and manufactures, of getting and spending, in which we bring forth and consume in a single century what it has taken Nature many thousand years to hoard. Our aim is to have more rather than to be more; our ideal is that of material progress; our praise is given to those who invent and discover the means of augmenting wealth. Liberty is opportunity to get rich; education is the development of the money-getting faculty. Our national life may, of course, be looked at from many sides, but the general drift of opinion and effort is in the direction here pointed out. Nine tenths of our thought and energy are given to material interests, and these interests represent nine tenths of our achievements. This may be true of men in general, it may be true also that material progress is a condition of moral and intellectual growth; but none the less is it true that right human life is a life of thought and love, of hope and faith, of imagination and desire. Consequently in a well-ordered society, the chief aim--nine tenths of all effort, let us say--will have for its object the creation of enlightened and loving men and women, whom faith and hope shall make strong, whom imagination shall refresh, and the desire of perfection shall keep active. The aims which the ideals of democracy suggest are not wholly or chiefly material. We strive, indeed, to create a social condition in which comfort and plenty shall be within the reach of all; but the better among us understand that this is but an inferior part of our work, and they take no delight whatever in our great fortunes and great cities. If democracy is the best government, it follows that it is the kind of government which is most favorable to virtue, intelligence, and religion. It is faint praise to say that in America there is more enterprise, more wealth, than elsewhere. What we should strive to make ourselves able to say, is, that there is here a more truly human life, more public and private honesty, purity, sympathy, and helpfulness; more love of knowledge, more perfect openness to light, greater desire to learn, and greater willingness to accept truth than is to be found elsewhere. It should be our endeavor to create a world of which it may be said, there life is more pleasant, beauty more highly prized, goodness held in greater reverence, the sense of honor finer, the recognition of talent and worth completer than elsewhere.