Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 7.djvu/232

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS On the day when it shall be well understood that we have no grander or more pressing work; that we should put aside and postpone all other reforms; that we have but one task—the instruction of the people, the diffusion of education, the encouragement of science—on that day a great step will have been taken in your regeneration. But our action needs to be a double one, that it may bear upon the body as well as the mind. To be exact, each man should be intelligent, trained not only to think, read, and reason, but made able to act and fight. Everywhere beside the teacher we should place the gymnast and the soldier, to the end that our children, our soldiers, our fellow citizens, may be able to hold a sword, to carry a gun on a long march, to sleep under the canopy of the stars, to support valiantly all the hardships demanded of a patriot. We must push to the front education. Otherwise we only make a success of letters, but do not create a bulwark of partiotspatriots [sic].

Yes, gentlemen, if you had to submit to the supreme agony of seeing the France of Kléber and Hoche lose her two most patriotic provinces, those best embodying at once the military, commercial, industrial, and democratic spirit, we could blame only our inferior physical and moral condition. To-day the interests of the country command us to speak no imprudent words, to close our lips, to sink our resentments to the bottom of our hearts, in order to take up the grand work of national regeneration, to devote to it all