Yes, it was high time for a toast-master to recognize the importance of the babies. Think what is in store for the present crop! Fifty years from now we shall all be dead, I trust, and then this flag, if it still survive (and let us hope it may), will be floating over a Republic numbering 200,000,000 souls, according to the settled laws of our increase. Our present schooner of State will have grown into a political leviathan – a Great Eastern. The cradled babies of to-day will be on deck. Let them be well trained, for we are going to leave a big contract on their hands. Among the three or four million cradles now rocking in the land are some which this nation would preserve for ages as sacred things, if we could know which ones they are. In one of these cradles the unconscious Farragut of the future is at this moment teething think of it! and putting in a world of dead earnest, unarticulated, but perfectly justifiable profanity over it, too. In another the future renowned astronomer is blinking at the shining Milky Way with but a languid interest poor little chap! – and wondering what has become of that other one they call the wet-nurse. In another the future great historian is lying – and doubtless will continue to lie until his earthly mission is ended. In another the future President is busying himself with no profounder problem of state than what the mischief has become of his hair so early; and in a mighty array of other cradles there are now some 60,000 future office-seekers, getting ready to furnish him occasion to grapple with that same old problem a second, time. And in still one more cradle, some where under the flag, the future illustrious commander-in-chief of the American armies is so little burdened with his approaching grandeurs and responsibilities as to be giving his whole strategic mind at this moment to trying to find out some way to get his big toe into his mouth – an achievement which, meaning no disrespect, the illustrious guest of this evening turned his entire attention to some fifty-six years ago; and if the child is but a prophecy of the man, there are mighty few who will doubt that he succeeded.
Our Children And Great Discoveries
Delivered at the authors’ club, New York
Our children – yours – and – mine. They seem like little things to talk about – our children, but little things often make up the sum of human life – that’s a good sentence. I repeat it, little things often produce great things. Now, to illustrate, take Sir Isaac Newton – I presume some of you have heard of Mr. Newton. Well, once when Sir Isaac Newton – a mere lad – got over into the man’s apple orchard – I don’t know what he was doing there – I didn’t come all the way from Hartford to q-u-e-s-t-i-o-n Mr. Newton’s honesty – but when he was there – in the main orchard – he saw an apple fall and he was a-t-t-racted toward it, and that led to the discovery – not of Mr. Newton but of the great law of attraction and gravitation.
And there was once another great discoverer – I’ve forgotten his name, and I don’t remember what he discovered, but I know it was something very important, and I hope you will all tell your children about it when you get home. Well, when the great discoverer was once loafn’ around down in Virginia, and a-puttin’ in his time flirting with Pocahontas – oh! Captain John Smith, that was the man’s name – and while he and Poca were sitting in Mr. Powhatan’s garden, he accidentally put his arm around her and picked something simple weed, which proved to be tobacco – and now we find it in every Christian family, shedding its civilizing influence broadcast throughout the whole religious community.
