Young America

“ The Young America was a world in herself, and the moral composition of her people was similar to that of communities on a larger scale. She had all the elements of good and evil on board. One fourth of the students were doubtless high-minded, moral young men, having fixed principles, and being willing to make great sacrifices rather than do wrong. As good behavior, as well as proficiency in the studies, was an element of success in the ship, a large proportion of the positively good boys were in the after cabin. ”

“ America rejoices in the energy, the imagination, and the promise of her young people. Whether in voluntary service, athletics, education, music, military service or within the family, young Americans display an enthusiasm, creativity, idealism, and dedication that have accomplished so much for our society and the world. ”

“ How much swaggering do we see around everywhere? No matter where you go you see little boys growing up full of pride, impudence and impertinence. They are called "Young America." Beautiful specimens, and fine men they will make when they are full grown! ”

“ You should take lessons of Young America! Young America isn’t afraid of the jingling of coin. Young America doesn’t spurn a good offer. Young America would jump at the chance. But as for work, why, work will come to you if you only wait for it long enough. ”

“ A propos of the young people, that is our other danger; the young people are eating us up,—there is nothing in America but the young people. The country is made for the rising generation; life is arranged for them ”

“ In the coming months, I urge American youth to reflect on our precious freedoms, to exchange ideas among themselves and with young people around the world, and to join with others in efforts to increase mutual understanding, enhance the observance of human rights, and promote world peace. In short, I urge our youth to be what they have been for many generations: America's proudest ambassadors of goodwill and our national values. ”

“ Because we know it so well, we know that it could be a haven of peace, security and abundance for all.
Therefore, we the young people of America, reaffirm our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. With confidence we look forward to a better life, a larger liberty and freedom. To those ends we dedicate our lives, our intelligence and our unified strength. ”

“ It is a revolutionary world that we all live in, and thus, as I have said in Latin America and in Asia and in Europe and in my own country, the United States, it is the young people who must take the lead. Thus, you, and your young compatriots everywhere, have had thrust upon you a greater burden of responsibility than any generation that has ever lived. ”

“ It is remarkable, that our people have their intellectual culture from one country, and their duties from another. This false state of things is newly in a way to be corrected. America is beginning to assert itself to the senses and to the imagination of her children, and Europe is receding in the same degree. This their reaction on education gives a new importance to the internal improvements and to the politics of the country. ”

“ America is at once the world's oldest Republic and a Nation whose spirit is made forever young by our heritage and our future of liberty, justice, and opportunity. The American people cherish the children God has granted us. We seek to give young people a good start in life through our care, encouragement, and training and our transmittal of the enduring values that provide stability, vision, and strength. ”

“ If then the promise of America were in the fact that she is one of the latest births of progress, we should point out that it is exactly the latest born that were the first to die. If in this sense she is praised as young, it may be answered that the young have died young, and have not lived to be old. ”

“ One other desire has trodden on the heels of the first: That Young England and Young America may be inspired with a wish to understand each other better, to take each other frankly and simply for the manhood in each ”

“ Every year is this drilled into the ears of the American boy, until he leaves school, when he takes a political part himself, connecting himself with young men’s society, where he spouts about tyrants, crowned heads, shades of his forefathers, blood flowing like water, independence, and glory. ”

“ Why is it that the young men of America, in the pride and bloom of early manhood, are summoned from homes, from the mothers who bore them, from the wives and sisters who love them, to the fields of bloody strife?... ”

“ And all across America—in our religious institutions, our schools, our neighborhoods, our work places—our people are banding together, teaching young people right from wrong and helping steer them on the right path. ”

“ It is only a verbal question whether the American civilization is young; it may become a very practical and urgent question whether it is dying. When once we have cast aside, as we inevitably have after a moment's thought, the fanciful physical metaphor involved in the word "youth," what serious evidence have we that America is a fresh force and not a stale one? ”

“ In the last case, the culture of years will never make the most painstaking apprentice his equal: no more will gardening give the advantage of a happy site to a house in a hole or on a pinnacle. In America, we have hitherto little to boast in this kind. The cities drain the country of the best part of its population: the flower of the youth, of both sexes, goes into the towns, and the country is cultivated by a so much inferior class. ”

“ Since 1971, America's young adults have taken their rightful place in this march toward true democracy and opportunity. Living up to the trust placed in them and meeting this profound responsibility of citizenship, they have voted in large numbers and have played a crucial role in choosing leaders and defining issues at the local, State, and national levels. Generous in spirit, optimistic and idealistic in outlook, they have often proved to be the conscience of our Nation. ”

“ Those young men who are now back in the United States have already made a difference to their country's intellectual outlook. They have taught America to look out upon the world with wider vision and to abandon the old isolation of American thought which was apt to ignore the rest of the human family and remain self-contained and aloof from a world policy. ”

“ The modern American small boy is a vastly different being from either of these transatlantic worthies; at all events his most prominent characteristics, as they strike a stranger, are not illustrated in the earlier period of their career.
The peculiarities of young America would, indeed, matter but little to the stranger if young America stayed at home. But young America does not stay at home. It is not necessary to track the American small boy to his native haunts in order to see what he is like. ”

“ Boys are working like men for years before they would be in England; time is money, and they assist to bring in the harvest.
But does this independence on the part of the youth of America end here? On the contrary, what at first was independence, assumes next the form of opposition, and eventually that of control.
The young men before they are qualified by age to claim their rights as citizens, have their societies, their book-clubs, their political meetings, their resolutions, all of which are promulgated in the newspapers ”

“ In the end, the next generation is what this entire trip is about, the young people in America, the young people in Europe and throughout the rest of the world. The kind of efforts we're pursuing this week, the kind of efforts that will increase democracy, provide for military cooperation instead of conflict, and provide for more open markets, for more jobs for our people and other people, these are the things which will make our young people's future more promising, more prosperous, and more secure. ”

“ Good morning. I always like to hear from young people across our country. After all, they're at the heart of our efforts to build America up, to face the demands and the challenges of the 21st century. ”

“ The young states forming the infant republic had too much to do in welding into one whole the varied and often incongruous elements of which they were themselves composed, to be able to pay much attention to the enterprising spirits who went forth from among them to found new homes in the wilderness. But when the turbulent infancy was over, and what we may call the young manhood of America began under the enlightened guidance of the great Washington, first President of the United States, a new era of discovery was ushered in. ”

“ It means, too, that the young Americans I spoke of seven years ago, as well as those who might be coming along the Virginia or Maryland shores this night and seeing for the first time the lights of this capital city, the lights that cast their glow on our great halls of government and the monuments to the memory of our great men — it means those young Americans will find a city of hope in a land that is free. ”

“ Though in her infantile state, the young republic of America exhibits the happiest prospects. Her extensive population, commerce, and wealth, the progress of agriculture, arts, sciences, and manufactures have increased with a rapidity beyond example. Colleges and academies have been reared, multiplied, and endowed with the best advantage for public instruction on the broad scale of liberality and truth. ”

“ Still it can be honestly said that there is no other country in the world, where able and energetic young men and women can so readily rise as in this. A president of a business college informed me, recently, that he has never been able to supply the demand for capable, first-class [Mark the adjective] bookkeepers, and his college has over nine hundred students. In America, young men of ability rise with most astonishing rapidity. ”

“ Above all, let us inspire young Americans with a sense of excitement, a sense of destiny, a sense of involvement, in meeting the challenges we face in this great period of our history. Only then are they going to have any sense of satisfaction in their lives.
The greatest privilege an individual can have is to server in a cause bigger than himself. ”

“ In America the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience. ”

“ But we, the youth of the world, live in a new age, and have new problems to deal with. We cannot well do worse than our elders have done; we may very easily do better. Since we have longer to live in this world than our elders, we have surely the right to save it if we can!
CHAPTER XCIII
THE OPEN FORUM I am writing in a time of reaction, but already the streaks of dawn are beginning to show. We are soon to witness the social revolution in Western Europe, and it will not be possible to keep these ideas from stirring the minds of young America. ”

“ Our young Americans have every reason to be proud of their contributions to the American way of life. They can look forward to doing more as they complete their educations and move into positions in science, space, education, medicine, business, labor, government, military service, and other fields. ”

“ To young Americans at both schools, I will be bringing a message of hope and optimism about our nation’s bright future. That is a message that I want to extend to all young Americans today, especially those who are graduating this year and entering the labor force. ”

“ Of course I do not mean that we are perfect—we are still crude; or that we have not made mistakes—we have rioted in error; or that other nations cannot teach us something—we can learn greatly from them, and we will. But this is the point as it affects you, young man: Among all the uncounted millions of human beings on this earth, none has the opportunities to make the most of life that the young American has. ”

“ America is a young country with an old mentality: it has enjoyed the advantages of a child carefully brought up and thoroughly indoctrinated; ”

“ I often think about the young Americans - teenagers and college kids not much older than you - from all over the country, watching the Civil Rights Movement unfold before them on their television sets. ”

“ The philosopher and lover of man have much harm to say of trade; but the historian will see that trade was the principle of Liberty; that trade planted America and destroyed Feudalism; that it makes peace and keeps peace, and it will abolish slavery. ”

“ Our children, who are today dreaming big dreams and who are filled with hope, will someday serve as leaders in government, industry, education, and the arts. For the good of our country and its continued progress and advancement, we must strive to give all young Americans the best possible start in life. ”

“ The late war has demonstrated to the whole world the wonderful skill and pluck of the young American, and the world must not suppose these qualities to be suddenly acquired, but must know them to be a matter of education—an education acquired during boyhood, at the boy’s own school, with boy professors. ”

“ But there is one thing to which the attention of young Americans should be directed as influencing their college life. Our country is no longer isolated. We can no longer be called a provincial people. We are decidedly a very intimate part of the world. Our relations with other peoples grow closer and closer, and they will keep on growing closer as the years pass by. A thousand Americans travel over sea to-day where one went abroad fifty years ago. Our foreign commerce is now greater in a single year than it used to be in an entire decade—yes, and quite recently, too, so swift our increase. ”