nose straight up toward the sky and "zoom" over them. Most of the Germans were so startled to see me right in their midst they either forgot to fire or fired so badly as to insure my absolute safety. Crossing the three lines of German trenches was not so comfortable; but by zigzagging and quick dodging I crossed them safely, and sped away to our aerodrome. There I found that no bullets had passed very close to me, although my wing-tips were fairly perforated.

Pleasure Reading:

Driggs' Heroes of Aviation

-W. A. Bishop

THE ROSE AND THE GARDENER

HE Rose in the garden slipped her bud,

THE

And she laughed in the pride of her youthful blood, As she thought of the Gardener standing by"He is old, so old! And he soon must die!"

The full Rose waxed in the warm June air,

And she spread, and spread, till her heart lay bare; And she laughed once more as she heard his tread"He is older now! He will soon be dead!"

But the breeze of the morning blew, and found
That the leaves of the blown Rose strewed the ground;

And he came at noon, that Gardener old,
And he raked them softly under the mold.

And I wove the thing to a random rime,
For the Rose is Beauty, the Gardener Time.

-Austin Dobson

THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN

(This oration is remarkable for the number of clear pictures it presents. The thought is clothed in artistic, poetic prose. This selection has long been a favorite with school boys for declamation.)

NOT

TOT MANY generations ago, where you now sit, encircled with all that exalts and embellishes civilized life, the rank thistle nodded in the wind, and the wild fox dug his hole unscared. Here, lived and loved another race of beings. Beneath the same sun that rolls over your head, the Indian hunter pursued the panting deer; gazing on the same moon that smiles for you, the Indian lover wooed his dusky mate.

Here, the wigwam blaze beamed on the tender and helpless, and the council fire glared on the wise and daring. Now, they dipped their noble limbs in your sedgy lakes, and now, they paddled the light canoe along your rocky shores. Here, they warred; the echoing whoop, the bloody grapple, the defying death song, all were here; and when the tiger-strife was over, here curled the smoke of peace.

Here, too, they worshiped; and from many a dark bosom went up a fervent prayer to the Great Spirit. He had not written His laws for them on tables of stone, but He had traced them on the tables of their hearts. The poor child of nature knew not the God of Revelation, but the God of the universe he acknowledged in every thing around.

He beheld Him in the star that sank in beauty behind his lonely dwelling; in the sacred orb that flamed on him from his midday throne; in the flower that snapped in the morning breeze; in the lofty pine that defied a thousand whirlwinds; in the timid warbler that never left its native grove; in the fearless eagle, whose untired pinion was wet in the clouds; in the worm that crawled at his feet; and in his own matchless form, glowing with a spark of that light, to whose mysterious source he bent in humble, though blind adoration.°

And all this has passed away. Across the ocean came a pilgrim bark, bearing the seeds of life and death. The former were sown for you; the latter sprang up in the path of the simple native. Two hundred years have changed the character of a great continent, and blotted forever from its face, a whole, peculiar people. Art has usurped the bowers of nature, and the anointed children of education have been too powerful for the tribes of the ignorant.

Here and there a stricken few remain; but how unlike their bold, untamable progenitors! The Indian of falcon glance and lion bearing, the theme of the touching ballad, the hero of the pathetic tale, is gone! and his degraded offspring crawls upon the soil where he walked in majesty, to remind us how miserable is man when the foot of the conqueror is on his neck.

As a race, they have withered from the land. Their arrows are broken, their springs are dried up, their cabins are in the dust. Their council fire has long since gone out on the shore, and their war cry is fast fading to the untrodden west. Slowly and sadly they climb the distant mountains, and read their doom in the setting sun. They are shrinking before the mighty tide which is pressing them away; they must soon hear the roar of the last wave, which will settle over them forever. -Charles Sprague

Words: embellishes - enriches; adoration-worship; usurped taken the place of; progenitors-fathers, ancestors.

Questions: Has this speech, which was given in 1825, proved entirely true? What is the United States government now doing for a great many Indians? Do you think the Indians are worse off now than when Columbus discovered America?

Pleasure Reading:

Cooper's The Deerslayer

Cooper's The Pathfinder

Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans
Jackson's Ramona

THE MEANING OF OUR FLAG

(This address was made by Henry Ward Beecher, one of the greatest preachers and orators this country has ever produced. Beecher went to England soon after the Civil War began, to persuade the English people not to lend assistance to the South. His eloquence and logic helped, for England remained neutral during the great struggle. What other great American patriot helped our cause abroad during the Revolution?)

THIS

HIS nation has a banner, and wherever it has streamed abroad, men have seen daybreak bursting on their eyes, for the American flag has been the symbol of liberty, and men have rejoiced in it. Not another flag on the globe had such an errand, or went forth upon the sea carrying everywhere, the world around, such hope for the captive and such glorious tidings. The stars upon it were to the pining nations like the morning stars of God, and the stripes upon it were beams of morning light.

As at early dawn the stars shine forth even while it grows light, and then as the sun advances that light breaks into banks and streaming lines of color, the glowing red and intense white striving together and ribbing the horizon with bars effulgent, so, on the American flag, stars and beams of many-colored light shine out together. And wherever the flag comes, and men behold it, they see in its sacred emblazonry' no rampant lion and no fierce eagle; they see the symbols of light. It is the Banner of Dawn; it means Liberty.

Consider the men who devised and set forth this banner; they were men that had taken their lives in their hands, and consecrated all their worldly possessions-for what? For the doctrine, and for the personal fact, of liberty, for the right of all men to liberty.

If any one, then, asks me the meaning of our flag, I say to him, it means just what Concord and Lexington meant; what Bunker Hill meant; which was, in short, the rising up of a valiant young people against an old tyranny to establish the most momentous doctrine that the world had ever known,

or has since known,-the right of men to their own selves and to their liberties.

The history of this banner is all on the side of liberty. Under it rode Washington and his armies; before it Burgoyne laid down his arms. It waved on the highlands at West Point;

it floated over old Fort Montgomery. When Arnold would have surrendered these, his night was turned into day, and his treachery was driven away by the beams of light from this starry banner.

It cheered our army, driven from New York, in their pilgrimage through New Jersey. It streamed in light over the soldiers' heads at Valley Forge and Morristown. It crossed the waters rolling with ice at Trenton; and when its stars gleamed in the cold morning with victory, a new day of hope dawned on the despondency of this nation. And when the long years of war were drawing to a close, underneath the folds of this immortal banner sat Washington, while Yorktown surrendered its hosts and our Revolutionary struggles ended with victory.

How glorious, then, has been its origin! How glorious has been its history! How divine its meaning! In all the world is there another banner that carries such hope, such grandeur of spirit, such soul-inspiring truth, as our dear old American flag? Made by liberty, made for liberty, nourished in its spirit, carried in its service, never, not once in all the earth, made to stoop to despotism!

Accept it, then, in its fullness of meaning. It is not a painted rag. It is a whole national history. It is the Constitution. It is the government. It is the free people that stand in the government, on the Constitution. Forget not what it means; and for the sake of its meaning, be true to your country's flag.

Let us, then, twine each thread of the glorious tissues of our country's flag about our heartstrings; and, looking upon our homes and catching the spirit that breathes upon us from