The Course of Human Events

by David McCullough

But it is in their ideas about happiness, I believe, that we come close to the heart of

their being and to their large view of the possibilities in their Glorious Cause.

It didn’t mean long vacations or material possessions or ease. As much as anything it meant the life of the mind and spirit. It meant education and the love of learning, the liberty to think for oneself.

For Washington, happiness derived both from learning and employing the benefits of learning to further the welfare of others.

He knew such wonders of the heavens to be the gifts of God, he wrote, but greatest of all was the gift of an inquiring mind.

He has given us reason to find out the truth, and the real design and true end of our existence.

For a free, self-governing people, something more than a vague familiarity with history is essential, if we are to hold on to and sustain our freedom.

history is a larger way of looking at life.