"The cup of water given for Thee
Still holds the freshness of Thy grace;
Yet long these multitudes to see
The sweet compassion of Thy face."
III
AN EDUCATIVE FORCE
"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge."
"After all, it is the children who are the important factors of our nation, and every one of them neglected is a reproach to every Christian, man or woman, in the churches who has a dollar or a voice. When the Spartans were demanded to give fifty children as hostages, they wisely replied, 'We would rather give one hundred of our most distinguished men.'
"It is an irrefutable fact that the work with the children pays the best dividends to the state and nation. There is a Doric oracle which says, 'If the Athenians want good citizens let them put whatever is beautiful into the ears of their sons.' If we Americanize this oracle it would read, 'If the Americans want good citizens let them put whatever is beautiful and useful into the ears of their sons and daughters.'"
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It is instructive to note the inter-relation and interaction of forces and influences that have been powerful factors in national development, and to consider their sources.
The American passion for education had its roots far back in Holland, in the period when that country was the world's great intellectual center, as well as the world's leader in commerce and manufacturing. The most powerful single factor in shaping Colonial thought and character was the Bible. It was from Holland that England received its first Bible printed in the English tongue.
It is said that under the persecution of Phillip II and the Duke of Alva, fully one hundred thousand Hollanders crossed the channel to find homes in England.