Oxford University Lecture Lyrics
[Will the] youths of England make your country again a royal throne of kings; ... for all the world a source of light, a center of peace? ... This is what [England] must either do or perish: she must found colonies as fast and as far as she is able, formed of her most energetic and worthiest men; - seizing every piece of fruitful waste ground she can set her foot on, and there teaching these her colonists ... that their first aim is to be to advance the power of England by land and by sea.
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Genius Annotation
John Ruskin (1819-1900) was a well-regarded English intellectual. The excerpt here was part of a talk that Ruskin gave to a standing room-only audience at Oxford on February 8, 1870.
Source: The DBQ Project
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