hard to make a lie stand always. A lie will not fit a
fact. It will only fit another lie made for the purpose. The life of
a lie is simply a question of time. Nothing but truth is immortal. The
nobles and kings quarreled;--the priests began to dispute;--the ideas of
government began to change.

In 1441 printing was discovered. At that time the past was a vast
cemetery with hardly an epitaph. The ideas of men had mostly perished
in the brain that produced them. The lips of the human race had been
sealed. Printing gave pinions to thought. It preserved ideas. It made it
possible for man to bequeath to the future the riches of his brain, the
wealth of his soul. At first, it was used to flood the world with the
mistakes of the ancients, but since that time it has been flooding the
world with light.

When people read they begin to reason, and when they reason they
progress. This was another grand step in the direction of Progress.

The discovery of powder, that put the peasant almost upon a par with
the prince;--that put an end to the so-called age of chivalry;--that
released a vast number of men from the armies;--that gave pluck and
nerve a chance with brute strength.

The discovery of America, whose shores were trod by the restless feet
of adventure;--that brought people holding every shade of superstition
together;--that gave the world an opportunity to compare notes, and to
laugh at the follies of each other. Out of this strange mingling of
all creeds, and superstitions, and facts, and theories, and countless
opinions, came the Great Republic.

Every fact has pushed a superstition from the brain and a ghost from the
clouds. Every mechanic art is an educator. Every loom, every reaper and
mower, every steamboat, every locomotive, every engine, every press,
every telegraph, is a missionary of Science and an apostle of Progress.
Every mill, every furnace, every building with its wheels and levers,
in which something is made for the convenience, for the use, and for the
comfort and elevation of man, is a church, and every school house is a
temple.

Education is the most radical thing in the world

To teach the alphabet is to inaugurate a revolution.

To build a school house is to construct a fort.

Every library is an arsenal filled with the weapons and ammunition of
Progress, and every fact is a monitor with sides of iron and a turret of
steel.

I thank the inventors, the discoverers, the thinkers. I thank Columbu