from which the mass of the people receive their information, are portraying only one of the fractions which made the great man what he was. "He was as fortunate as great and good." Do our school histories inform the youth. of the land why he was "fortunate" to the exclusion of why he was "great and good?" If so, George Washington is, or soon will be, "an unknown man."

One hundred years ago he was not unknown as a man. "Washington is dead," exclaimed Napoleon in the orders of the day, when he learned the sad news; "this great man fought against tyranny; he consolidated the liberty of his country. His memory will ever be dear to the French people, as to all freemen in both hemispheres." Said Charles James Fox, "A character of virtues so happily tempered by one another and so wholly unalloyed by any vices, is hardly to be found on the pages of history." And these men spoke of whom-the General, the President, or the man? If, as legend states, "the Arab of the desert talks of Washington in his tent and his name is familiar to the wandering Scythian," what of other "fortunate" heroes, of William of Orange, Gustavus Adolphus and Cromwell, who, like Washington, consolidated the liberties of their countries, and with an eclat far more likely to win the admiration of an Oriental?

Half a century ago multitudes were pointed to the man Washington in the superb oratory of Edward Everett. Quoting that memorable extract from the letter of the youthful surveyor, who boasted of earning an honest doubloon a day, the speaker set before his audiences "not an ideal hero, wrapped in cloudy generalities and a mist of vague panegyric, but the real, identical man." And, again, he quoted that pathetic letter to Governor Dinwiddie from the bleeding Virginian border, after Braddock's defeat, that his hearers might "see it all-see the whole man." Was Edward Everett mistaken, are these letters not extant to-day, or are they unread? Surely the latter supposition must be the true one, if the man Washington. is being forgotten. And look back to the school histories of Edward Everett's time. The "reader" and "history" were one text-book in that day, and one of the best known, "Porter's Rhetorical Reader" lies before me, prefaced May 31st. From it notice two quotations which must have influenced youthful ideas of Washington a half and three quarters of a century ago. One is the last verse of Pierpont's "Washington:"

"God of our sires and sons,

Let other Washingtons

Our country bless,

And, like the brave and wise

Of by-gone centuries,

Show that true greatness lies

In righteousness."

Again, from the address "America," of the Irish orator Phillips, having exalted Washington as general, statesman and conqueror, he continues:

"If he had paused there, history might have doubted what station to assign him; whether at the head of her citizens, or her soldiers, her heroes, or her patriots. But the last glorious act crowns his career, and banishes all hesitation. Who, like Washington, after having emancipated a hemisphere, resigned its crown, and preferred the retirement of domestic life to the adoration of a land he might be almost said to have created? Happy, proud America! The lightnings of Heaven yielded to your philosophy! The temptations of earth could not seduce your patriotism!"

A candid review of the more popular school histories will bring out the fact that the man Washington is almost forgotten, in so far as the General and the statesman do not portray him. In Colonel Higginson's "Young Folks History of the United States" (to name a well-known author and one whom criticism can not injure), there seems to be but one line, of five words, which describes the character of Washington. Could we not forego, for once, what the Indian chieftain said of the young colonel's having borne a charmed life at Braddock's defeat, to make room for one little reason why Washington was "completer in nature" and of "a nobler human type" than any and all of the heroes of romance?

Mr. Otis Kendall Stuart has written a most interesting account of "The Popular Opinion of Washington" as ascertained by inquiry among persons of all ages, occupations and conditions. He found that Washington was held to be a "broad," "brave," "thinking," "practical" man; an aristocrat, so far as the dignity of his position demanded, but willing to "work with his hands" and with a credit that was "A 1!" And "when he did a thing, he did it," and, if to the question, "Was he a great general and statesman?" there was some hesitation, to the question, "Was he a great man?" the answer was an unhesitating "Yes."

One may hold that such opinions as these have been gained from our school histories, but I think they are not so much from the histories, as from the popular legends of Washington, which, true and false, will never be forgotten by the common people until they cease to represent the mannot the patient, brave and wary general, or the calm, far-seeing statesman, but that "simple, stainless and robust character," as president Eliot has so beautifully described it, "which served with dazzling success the precious cause of human progress through liberty, and so stands, like the sunlit peak of Matterhorn, unmatched in all the world.”—Interior.

CHARACTER AND EXAMPLE OF WASHINGTON.*

MR. PROVOST, officers and students of the University of Pennsylvania, ladies and gentlemen:

We celebrate here, as in every part of our country, the birthday of a great patriot, who assured the beginning of a great nation. This day be

*An address by the late President McKinley, delivered at the University of Pennsylvania, February 22, 1898.

longs to patriotism and the people. But in a certain sense the University of Pennsylvania has special reasons for honoring the twenty-second of February. For over half a century, with ever increasing popularity and public recognition, you have observed the occasion either as a holiday or with patriotic exercises, participated in by faculty and students. No other American Institution of learning has a prouder title to the veneration of Washington's memory than this, whose foundation was laid in colonial days nearly fifty years before Pennsylvania became a State; whose progress was largely due to the activity of Franklin and other zealous and far-seeing patriots, and whose trustees were on terms of sufficient intimacy with Washington to congratulate him upon his election to the presidency, and to receive from him a notable reply which has passed into the history of the times.

Washington, too, belonged to the brotherhood of the Alumni of this Institution, having accepted the degree of Doctor of Laws, conferred upon him in 1783—an honor doubtless the more appreciated when he recalled the events which gave him close and peculiar attachment to the City of Philadelphia.

No wonder that your great university has made February 22d its most impressive ceremonial, and devoted its annual exercises to special tributes to the memory of the first president of the United States and the patriotic themes which cluster, thickly about his life and work. I rejoice with you in the day. I rejoice, also, that throughout this broad land the birthday of the patriot leader is faithfully observed and celebrated with enthusiasm and earnestness, which testify to the virtue and gratitude of the American people.

It would not be possible, in the comparatively short time to which these exercises must to-day be limited, to follow Washington in his long and distinguished services at the head of the army and as Chief Executive of the Government. My purpose is simply to call to your attention a few points in Washington's career which have singularly impressed me, and refer to some passages in his writings that seem peculiarly appropriate for the guidance of the people, who under our form of government have in their keeping the well-being of the country.

In its entirety, Washington's public life is as familiar to the American student as the history of the United States. They are associated in holy and indissoluble bonds. The one is incomplete without the other. Washington's character and achievements have been a part of the schoolbooks of the Nation for more than a century, and have moved American youth and American manhood to aspire to the highest ideals of responsible citizenship. With enduring fame, as a great soldier, the world has recognized his equal accomplishments in the paths of statesmanship. As a soldier he was peerless in the times in which he lived, and as a statesman his rank is fixed with the most illustrious in any country or in any age.

THE NATIONAL WASHINGTON MONUMENT.

Corner-stone laid July 4, 1848; Capstone, December 6, 1884. Built of crystal marble from Maryland; 55 feet square at the base and 555 feet in height. Interior walls ornamented with tablets and stone specimens contributed by different nations and organizations.

But with all our pride in Washington, we not infrequently fail to give him credit for his marvellous genius as a constructive statesman. We are constantly in danger of losing sight of the sweep and clearness of his comprehension, which accurately grasped the problems of the remote future and knew how to formulate the best means for their solution. It was committed to Washington to launch our Ship of State. He had neither precedent nor predecessor to help him. He wielded the scattered, and at times antagonistic, colonies into an indestructible union, and inculcated the lessons of mutual forbearance and fraternity which have cemented the States into still closer bonds of interest and sympathy.

From the hour when Washington declared in his Virginia home that he would raise a thousand men and equip them at his own expense to march to the defense of Boston, he became the masterful spirit of the Continental Army, and the mightiest single factor in the continent's struggle for liberty and independence. Apparently without personal ambition, spurning royal honors when they were suggested to him, he fulfilled a still more glorious destiny as the guiding force of a civilization, freer and mightier than the history of man had ever known.

Though Washington's exalted character and the most striking acts of his brilliant record are too familiar to be recounted here, where so many times they have received eloquent and deserved eulogy, yet often as the story is retold it engages our love and admiration and interest. We love to recall his noble unselfishness, his heroic purposes, the power of his magnificent personality, his glorious achievements for mankind, and his stalwart and unflinching devotion to independence, liberty, and union. These cannot be too often told or be too familiarly known.

A slaveholder himself he yet hated slavery, and provided in his will for the emancipation of his slaves. Not a college graduate, he was always enthusiastically the friend of liberal education. He used every suitable occasion to impress upon Congress and the country the importance of a high standard of general education, and characterized the diffusion of knowledge as the most essential element of strength in the system of free government. That learning should go with liberty, and that liberty is never endangered so long as it is in the keeping of intelligent citizens, was the ideal civic code which his frequent utterances never failed to enforce.

And how reverent always was this great man, how prompt and generous his recognition of the guiding hand of Divine Providence in establishing and controlling the destinies of the colonies and the Republic. Again and again-in his talks, in his letters, in his State papers, and formal addresses -he reveals this side of his character, the force of which we still feel, and, I trust, we always will.

At the very height of his success and reward, as he emerged from the Revolution, receiving by unanimous acclaim the plaudits of the people and