Supposing this open door policy did admit a few worthless youngsters into the school and supposing again that the private school didn't admit such of a different order (which I very much doubt)--along with these Dick was going to find here the men--the past had proved this and the present was proving it--who eventually would become our statesmen, our progressive business men, our lawyers and doctors--if not our conservative bankers. For one graduate of such a school as my former surroundings had made me think essential for the boy, I could count now a dozen graduates of this very high school who were distinguishing themselves in the city. The boy was going to meet here the same spirit I was getting in touch with among my emigrant friends--a zeal for life, a belief in the possibilities of life, an optimistic determination to use these possibilities, which somehow the blue-blooded Americans were losing. It seemed to me that life was getting stale for the fourth and fifth generation. I tried to make the boy see this point of view. I went back again with him to the pioneer idea. "Dick," I said in substance, "your great-great-grandfather pulled up stakes and came over to this country when there was nothing here but trees, rocks and Indians. It was a hard fight but a good fight and he left a son to carry on the fight. So generation after generation they fought but somehow they grew a bit weaker as they fought. Now," I said, "you and I are going to try to recover that lost ground. Let's think of ourselves as like our great-great-grandfathers. We've just come over here. So have about a million others. The fight is a different fight to-day but it's no less a fight and we're going to win. We have a good many advantages that these newcomers haven't. You see them making good on every side of you but I'll bet they can't lick a good American--when he isn't asleep. You and I are going to make good too." "You bet we are, Dad," he said, with his eyes grown bright. "Then," I said, "you must work the way the newcomers work. I don't want you to think you're any better than they are. You aren't. But you're just as good and these two hundred years we've lived here ought to count for something." The boy lifted his head at this. "You make me feel as though we'd just landed with the Pilgrims," he said. "So we have," I said. "June seventh of this very year we landed on Plymouth Rock just as our ancestors did two centuries ago. They've been all this time paving the way for you and me. They've built roads and schools and factories and it's up to us now to use them. You and I have just landed from England. Let's see what we can do as pioneers."