The True Citizen: How to Become One

History and biography unite in teaching that circumstances have rarely favored great men. They have fought their way to triumph over the road of difficulty and through all sorts...

Let us examine this argument. Suppose you go out into the street and ask the first person you meet what he likes? You happen to accost a man in rags with an unsteady step, who,...

We all know what the feeling of gratitude is. We have said "Thank you," a great many times; and have often felt really grateful in our hearts for gifts and favors received. But...

More than sixteen hundred years after an eruption of Vesuvius had buried Pompeii in ashes, explorers laid bare the ruins of the ill-fated city. There the unfortunate inhabitants...

The presence or absence of a reverent spirit is of real importance; for it adds to, or takes away from, our enjoyment of the world in which we live. One person finds happiness e...

He has left behind him, as the result of his labors, his great book on "The Birds of America," in ten volumes; and illustrated with four hundred and forty-eight colored plates o...

By industry we mean activity that is regular and devoted to the carrying out of some purpose. More definitely, it is activity that is designed to be useful to ourselves or to ot...

It is always mean for a man or boy "to go back," as we say, on a friend. It is still worse, if possible, to "go back" on one's self. A brave man or boy will manfully take the co...

But with this increase of freedom and privilege, comes the increase of responsibility. Every member of the family who is old enough to appreciate its privileges, is old enough t...

Historic illustrations of self-denial, still fresh in the memories of many citizens, are to the point here. General Grant had been for several months in front of Petersburg, app...

Calais is a pleasant seaport town of France, situated on the Straits of Dover. Large numbers of travelers from England to France, and from France to England, pass through this b...

Although, when the news reached him, he was hundreds of miles away, Havelock undertook to save that little garrison. It seemed an impossible task, and yet with a few hundred bra...

The second incident is told as follows: In 1775, at Cambridge, the army was destitute of powder. Washington sent Colonel Glover to Marblehead for a supply of that article, which...

This book, intended as a supplementary reader for pupils in the seventh and eighth grades of school, has been prepared with a view to meeting a real need of the times. While the...

In using Mr. Sumner as our special illustration of conscientiousness, it is not because we lack other examples. On the contrary, they are all about us; and doubtless we could al...

In various ways, John Adams served his country with unswerving loyalty. When Washington was chosen president, Adams was chosen vice-president for both terms, and was then electe...

One of the most ominous signs of the times is, that good men stand aloof from politics. They do this either because they do not fully appreciate the importance of their influenc...