1. This is a Christian country. Although there is not, and cannot be, any part or branch of the church established by law, there is assured liberty for every citizen to worship God by himself, or with others in congregations, as he or they may choose, in such forms of worship as may be preferred, with none to molest or make afraid. Here is absolute freedom of worship. And even if it be that the name of God is not in our Constitution, nevertheless no president or governor or public officer can be inducted or inaugurated in high office except by taking oath on the book of God, and as in his presence, that he will faithfully discharge the duties of his office. If there were nothing else, this public acknowledgment of the being of Almighty God and our accountability to him gives us an unquestioned right to call ourselves a Christian people.
2. This is a free government, free in the sense that the people choose their own rulers, whether of towns, cities, States, or the nation. There is no hereditary rule here, and cannot be. We not only choose our own rulers, but when we are dissatisfied with them for whatever cause, we dismiss them. And the minority accept the decision when it is ascertained, without doubt, without a question of its righteousness; they only want to know whether the majority have actually chosen this or that candidate, and they accept frankly, if not cheerfully. We have had a splendid illustration of this within this present month. The great party that has administered the government for four years past, on the verdict of the majority, are preparing to retire and will retire on the fourth of March next, and give up the government to the other great party, its victorious rival. Nowhere else in the world can such a revolution be accomplished on so grand a scale, by so many people, with so little friction. This government then is better than any monarchy, no matter how carefully guarded by constitutional restrictions and safeguards. The best monarchical governments are in Europe: the best of all in England; but the governments of Europe have many and great concessions to make to the people, before they can stand side by side with the United States in strong, healthy, considerate management of the people. It has been said that the best machinery is that which has the least friction, and as the time passes, we may hope that our machinery of government will be so smooth that the people will hardly know that they are governed at all; in fact, they will be their own governors. This time is coming as sure as Christmas, though not so close at hand, and you boys can hasten it by your own upright, manly bearing when you come to be men. Never forget that this is a government of the majority, and you must see to it that the majority be true men.
3. We are separated by wide oceans from the rest of the world. The Atlantic separates us from Europe on the east; the Gulf of Mexico from South America on the south, and the great Pacific ocean washes our western shores. We are a continent to ourselves, with the exception of Mexico, a sister republic on the south, with whom we are not likely to quarrel again, and the Dominion of Canada on the north, which, if never to become a part of ourselves, will at least at some day, and probably not a very distant day, become independent of the mother country as we did, though not at the great cost at which we obtained our freedom. Our distance from Europe relieves us entirely from the consideration of subjects which occupy most of the time of their statesmen, and which very often thrill the rest of the world in the apprehension of a general war in Europe. We are under no necessity of annexing other territory. We are not afraid of what is called “the balance of power;” we have no army that is worthy of the name, because we don’t need one, and we can make one if we should need it; and we have no navy to speak of, though I think we ought to have for the protection of our commerce, when our commerce shall be further encouraged. We have no entanglements with other nations; the great father of his country in his Farewell Address warned the people against this danger.
4. Our country is very large. You school-boys can tell me as well as I can tell you what degrees of latitude and longitude we reach, and how many millions of square miles we count. Europeans say we brag too much about the great extent of our country; but I do not refer to it now for boasting, but as a matter of thankfulness to God for giving it to us. It means that our territory, reaching from the Arctic to the tropics, gives us every variety of climate and almost every variety of product that the earth produces; and I am sure that the time will come when, under a higher agricultural cultivation than we have yet reached, our soil will produce everything that grows anywhere else in the world. The corn harvest now being gathered in our country will reach two thousand millions of bushels. The mind staggers under such ponderous figures and quantities. Our wheat fields are hardly less productive; our potatoes and rice and oats and barley and grass, the products of our cattle and sheep, and, in short, everything that our soil above ground yields; and the enormous yield of our coal mines, our oil wells, our natural gas, our metals, our railroads, spanning the entire continent and binding the people together with bands of steel—all these, and many others, which time will not permit me even to mention, give some faint idea of what a splendid country it is that the Almighty God has given to the American people. And do we not well therefore, when we come together on a day like this, to make our acknowledgments to Him?
5. The general education of the people is another reason for thankfulness to God. The system is not yet universal, but it will be at no distant day. You boys will live to see the day when every man, woman and child born in the United States (except those who are too young or feeble-minded) will be able to read and write and cipher. It is sure to come. Then, under the blessing of God, when people learn to do their own reading and thinking, we shall not fear anarchists and atheists and the many other fools who, under one name or another, are now trying to make this people discontented with their lot. There is no need for such people here, and no place for them; they have made a mistake in coming to this free land, as some of them found to their cost on the gallows at Chicago.
6. We have no war in our country, no famine, and with the exception of poor Jacksonville, Florida, no pestilence. Famine we have never known, and with such an extent of country we have little need to dread such a scourge as that. No one need suffer for food in our country, and this is the only country in the world of which this can be said; for labor of some kind can always be found, and food is so cheap, plain kinds of food, that none but the utterly dissipated and worthless need starve; and in fact none do starve; for if they are so wretchedly improvident, the guardians of the poor will save them from suffering not only, but actually provide them with a home, that for real comfort is not known elsewhere in the world.
Some of us have seen war in its most dreadful proportions, but even then the alleviations furnished by the Christian Commission greatly relieved some of its most horrid features; and we are not likely to see war again, for there will be hereafter nothing to quarrel and fight about. Our political differences will never again lead to the taking up of arms in deadly strife.
Such are some of the occasions of thankfulness which led the President of the United States to ask the people, by public proclamation, to turn aside for one day from their business, their farms, their workshops, their counting-houses, to close the schools, and assemble in their places of worship and thank God, the giver of every good and perfect gift.
But I don’t think the President of the United States knew what special reasons the Girard College boys have to keep a thanksgiving day. And I shall try in what I have yet to say to point out some of them.
1. This foundation is under the control of the Board of City Trusts. When Mr. Girard left the bulk of his great estate for this noble purpose, he gave it to the “mayor, aldermen and citizens of Philadelphia,” as his trustees. The city of Philadelphia could act only through its legislative body, the select and common councils, bodies elected by the people, and consequently more or less under the influence of one or the other of the great political parties. Nearly twenty years ago, owing largely to Mr. William Welsh, who became the first President of the Board of City Trusts, the legislature of Pennsylvania took from the control of councils all the charitable trusts of the city and committed them to this board. If any political influences were ever unworthily exerted in the former board it ceased when the judges of the city of Philadelphia and the judges of the Supreme Court named the first directors of the City Trusts. These directors are all your friends; they give much thought, much labor, much anxiety to your well-being, desiring to do the best things that are possible to be done for your welfare, and to do them in the best way. Many of them have been successful in finding desirable situations for such of your number as were prepared to accept such places. I am glad to say that I have three college boys associated with me in my business; Mr. Stuart had two; Mr. Michener has two; General Wagner has two, and Mr. Rawle has had one, and probably other members of the board have also, so you see our interest in you is not limited to the time which we spend here and in the office on South Twelfth street, but we are ever on the lookout for things which we hope may be to your advantage.