Nations do not have to make serious mistakes in order to learn valuable
lessons. Every national action, no matter how trivial, which is
scrutinized with candor, may contribute to the stock of national
intellectual discipline--the result of which should be to form a
constantly more coherent whole out of the several elements in the
national composition--out of the social and economic conditions, the
stock of national opinions, and the essential national ideal. And it is
this essential national ideal which makes it undesirable for the
national consciousness to dwell too much on the past or to depend too
much upon the lessons of experience alone. The great experience given to
a democratic nation must be just an incorrigible but patient attempt to
realize its democratic ideal--an attempt which must mold history as well
as hang upon its lessons. The function of the patriotic political
intelligence in relation to the fulfillment of the national Promise must
be to devise means for its redemption--means which have their relations
to the past, their suitability to the occasion, and their contribution
towards a step in advance.
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