On the other hand, no other nation of the world has so much as we to be thankful for and to encourage them. We have no bad neighbors who are strong enough for us to be afraid of, and all the greater powers of the world are far enough away to take very little interest in us, unless we annoy them in some way. We do not have to squander the energies and sometimes the life-blood of our race by putting all our young men into armies and navies and teaching them distrust, suspicion, cruelty and the spirit of rapine. Our taxes are heavy, but, on the other hand, our national debt, once so enormous, is being reduced with such rapidity that soon we will show the world the astonishing spectacle of a great nation without a debt. There is nowhere else in the world where a person with money to invest and desiring it to remain absolutely secure, no matter at how small a rate of interest, cannot quickly obtain the securities of his own government for his gold or notes, but here there is very little encouragement any longer to buy the national bonds, for they are being redeemed at a rate which makes it almost impossible for any one to retain them with certainty for a long time as a permanent investment. Holders of the debts of other countries expect never to have their principal redeemed; they are satisfied to get interest perpetually, as undoubtedly they will unless the debts are repudiated. There is very little possibility of any foreign country of the first class ever discharging all of its financial obligations so far as principal is concerned, unless it provokes a fight with the United States and holds our cities for ransom. If we must, and certain economists say we must, continue to extract a large amount of money from the pockets of the people, we will at least have the satisfaction of seeing it spent for something besides dead horses. We also are reducing the proportion of our uneducated and ignorant classes at a rapid and gratifying rate. Other countries are working in this direction with more skill, thoughtfulness and accurate appliances, but, on the other hand, they have to contend against the apathy of a large portion of the population, an article which, happily, in this country is of very small proportions. Besides the vast mass of uneducated beings who have come to us as immigrants, we have also the entire colored population of the South, but schools are built so rapidly and all classes of our people, even the most ignorant of blacks, are so ambitious to be as good as any other class, that it is not at all difficult to get children to school and to persuade parents to take a hearty interest in education. Whatever may be our faults in the future, ignorance promises not to be one of them.