The solid foundations of all liberty rest upon individual character, and individual character is the only sure guaranty for social security and national progress. Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, no matter by what other name you call it. The gods are always on the side of the man who relies on himself and helps himself; men's arms are long enough to reach stars, if they will only stretch them. It is so contrary to the spirit of our nation to be anything but self-helpful. "The flag of freedom cannot long float over a nation of deadheads; only those who determine to pay their way from cradle to grave have a right to make the journey." Schiller says that the kind of education that perfects the human race is action, conduct, self-culture, self-control. It has been said that the individual is perfected far more by work than by reading, by action more than by study, by character more than by biography; these are courses that are given by the University of Life more completely than in all other institutions known to men. The great men of science, literature, art, action--those apostles of great thoughts and lords of the great heart--belong to no special rank. They come from colleges, workshops, farms, from poor men's huts and rich men's mansions; but they all began with reliance upon themselves, and with an instinctive feeling that they must help themselves solely in climbing to the work or the station which they had assigned to themselves. Many of God's greatest apostles of thought and feeling and action have come from the humblest stations, but the most insuperable difficulties have not long been obstacles to them. These greatest of difficulties are true men's greatest helpers--they stimulate powers that might have lain dormant all through life, but often have readily yielded to the stout and reliant heart. There is no greater blessing in the world than poverty which is allied to self-reliance and the spirit of self-help. "Poverty is the northwind which lashes men into vikings." Lord Bacon says that men believe too great things of riches, and too little of indomitable perseverance.