Mark Twain delivered this speech at the dedication of new buildings at the College of the City of New York. The mayor who preceded him mentioned that good citizenship should take precedence even over education. Twain uses this introduction to transition into a funny discussion of the motto “In God we trust” being stamped into U.S. coins and how this relates to principles of citizenship. “If the cholera or black plague should come to these shores, perhaps the bulk of the nation would pray to be delivered from it,” he remarks, “but the rest would put their trust in the Health Board of the City of New York.”
