No man could fail to be made a better American by traveling through this great historic State of yours, where, throughout his journey, he sees place after place associated with the historic past, such as this city of yours near the Guilford battleground, commemorating by its name one of Washington’s great generals. North Carolina’s history has ever been high and honorable. It is right that we should remember that the mighty deeds of our forefathers are not to serve to us as excuses for inaction on our part, but as spurs to drive us forward to doing our duty in our turn. We respect the son of a worthy father if he feels that the fact that his father did well makes it incumbent upon him to strive to do better. We despise the boy who treats the fact that his father counted for something as being an excuse for his counting for nothing. So I am glad to note the care that you in this State are giving to education. The greatness of the country in the time immediately to come will depend upon the way in which the young generation of to-day is trained to citizenship in the future. I am sorry to say that there is probably no one here who is not acquainted with some kindly, well-meaning, and most foolish father or mother who, because life has been hard with him or her in the past, takes the view that the children are not to have to face any difficulties. The worst thing that you can do for a child is to bring up him or her to dodge difficulties. The children who will rise up to call their parents blessed are those whom the parents have trained to meet difficulties, not to shirk them; to overcome obstacles, not to get out of the way for them. Neither the individual nor the community is worth anything if it seeks after that which is easy. The thing to do is to find out what is worth doing and do it—to show the manly quality that allows of this being done. AT CHARLOTTE, N. C., OCTOBER 19, 1905 _My Fellow-Citizens_: I have enjoyed more than I can say passing through this great State to-day. I entered your borders a pretty good American, and I leave them a better American. I have rejoiced in the symptoms of your abounding material prosperity. I am here in a great centre of cotton manufacturing. Within a radius of a hundred miles of this city probably half of the cotton manufacturing of the United States is done. I realize to the full, as every good citizen should realize, that there must be a foundation of material prosperity upon which to build the welfare of State or Nation; but I realize also, as every good citizen should, that material prosperity, material well-being, can never be anything but the foundation. It is the indispensable foundation; but if we do not raise upon it the superstructure of a higher citizenship then we fail in bringing this country to the level to which it shall and will be brought.