Pioneers and Patriots--and Lessons Learned

If we have learned any lesson from the pioneers and patriots of the past⎯these surely should be part of any lesson learned: self-reliance, cooperation with others, freedom to move forward, faith in the future, and acknowledgement of our dependence on Divine Providence.

Men must do many things for themselves. Yet all of us need the help of others, and needing it, must offer it also. We need freedom to be what we were meant to be, and we need faith in the future. All of us need to acknowledge our dependence upon God, since there are so many things beyond self-help⎯beyond the help of human hands.

As to self-reliance, there is no real evidence that men were meant to have everything⎯effortlessly or easily. We have to learn, to work, to take responsibility, to see and decide for ourselves.

There is no substantial success without intensive work.

Nor can we reasonably expect to be spared the results of our own errors. We must, for ourselves, learn the truth, have the convictions, preserve the principles. We must have freedom to move forward, to choose, and, if possible, to excel. The pursuit of excellence is essential. “The idea is,” said Henry Ward Beecher, “not that every man shall be on a level with every other, but that every one shall have liberty, without hindrance, to be what God made him,”⎯to be whatever he can be that is good.

We are different⎯different in talents, in capacity, in preference, in performance, and the artificial hindrance that holds a man back from learning, from developing, from doing, from being the best he can be, is wasteful.

In looking to the pioneers and heroes of the past and in moving toward the future, these stand out among the needs, among the lessons to be learned: self-reliance, a sense of obligation to one another, freedom to improve, freedom to excel⎯freedom, work, faith in the future, and a humble acknowledgement of dependence upon Divine Providence.