| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Polity of Athenians and Lacedaemonians by Xenophon: wear which tend to make their feet tender, and their bodies are
enervated by various changes of clothing. And as for food, the only
measure recognised is that which is fixed by appetite.
[1] = "boy-leaders." Cf. St. Paul, "Ep. Gal." iii. 24; The Law was our
schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ.
[2] Cf. Plato, "Alc. maj." 106 E; "Theages," 122 E; Aristot. "Pol."
viii. 3.
[3] Or, "sandals."
But when we turn to Lycurgus, instead of leaving it to each member of
the state privately to appoint a slave to be his son's tutor, he set
over the young Spartans a public guardian, the Paidonomos[4] or
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Life in the Iron-Mills by Rebecca Davis: You laugh at the shallow temptation? You see the error
underlying its argument so clearly,--that to him a true life was
one of full development rather than self-restraint? that he was
deaf to the higher tone in a cry of voluntary suffering for
truth's sake than in the fullest flow of spontaneous harmony?
I do not plead his cause. I only want to show you the mote in
my brother's eye: then you can see clearly to take it out.
The money,--there it lay on his knee, a little blotted slip of
paper, nothing in itself; used to raise him out of the pit,
something straight from God's hand. A thief! Well, what was it
to be a thief? He met the question at last, face to face,
Life in the Iron-Mills |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Collected Articles by Frederick Douglass: one government, one administration of justice, one condition
to the exercise of the elective franchise, for men of all races
and colors alike. This great measure is sought as earnestly
by loyal white men as by loyal blacks, and is needed alike by both.
Let sound political prescience but take the place of an
unreasoning prejudice, and this will be done.
Men denounce the negro for his prominence in this discussion;
but it is no fault of his that in peace as in war, that in
conquering Rebel armies as in reconstructing the rebellious States,
the right of the negro is the true solution of our national
troubles. The stern logic of events, which goes directly to the
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