"I have noted with pride that through thick and through thin
You cling to a thing till you do it.
And whatever your aim, you are certain to win,
Because you seem bound to stick to it.
Then I turn to whatever my hands are about,
And with fortified purpose renew it
And the end soon encompass for which I set out
If only like you I stick to it."
I do not know who the author of that is, but he was right. He is a rifle.
We too need to take aim.—Did you ever see the small boy the first time he was allowed to hold a gun?
He held it up, shut his eyes, and bang! it went off, but he had not the first idea where the shot went to.
Take aim, my boy. Look along the sight and see where you are shooting. See if there is anything to shoot.
They say there is a tombstone in one of Europe's royal cemeteries with these words on it:
"Here lies a monarch who with the
best of intentions, never
carried out a single plan."
And to make the aim sure, and put power behind it, there is need of a long barrel. That barrel keeps the shot in. You could have a lot of gunpowder lying around loose and put a match to it and have a regular Fourth of July blaze, but it would not do much. But put a little bit of powder behind a rifle ball and hedge that ball in with a barrel, and bang! it goes with terrific power—a force strong enough to go through a sheet of iron.
That is why you go to school and why you are taught to obey, and why you have to follow rules, and why they drill you and put you under discipline. It gives you power.
The free girl and boy is not the one who can do anything he or she wants to do. That is not liberty, that is license. The free girl and boy is the trained one, and that means hard work and effort and holding in, and ruling.