Abigail Adams in a letter to her son, John Quincy Adams (as paraphrased by David McCullough, the historian): “You have had all the advantages. There isn’t a book that you wanted that you haven’t been provided. You’ve gotten to know some of the most interesting minds of our time. You have traveled; you have learned languages. How inexcusable it would be in you if you were to turn out a blockhead.”

Then he goes on to say: That’s true of all of us. The times we live in; the availability of wonderful books. newspapers, magazines, information, opportunity of all kinds. We have more choice of vocation, education, what we read, what we see, the music we hear than any civilization ever in all of history. And to fail to live up to those opportunities, to fail to count those blessings is to be less than what we ought to be.