powers conferred by it and of making the sovereignty of the nation but a petty thing as compared with the sovereignty of the State. Under Marshall's auspices, however, and his interpretation and exposition of the Constitution, the sentiment of nationality germinated and grew apace, a vigorous national life developed, and an indestructible union of indestructible States became a tangible and inspiring entity, appealing alike to the affections and the reason of men, and in which thus far at least they have seen both the ark of their safety and an ideal for which to willingly lay down their lives. I refer thus to the past because the past is assured and because there are those who look to the future with apprehension-who do not disguise their fear that the republic of Washington and Marshall is now suffering a mortal assault not from without but from within-not from "foreign levy," but from "malice domestic." Those who take this view include men of both the great political parties and men who deservedly command the highest respect and deference from their fellow countrymen.

Nevertheless, they must not be allowed to lessen our faith in the final triumph of the fundamental ideas which underlie our national life. The fathers did not build upon a quicksand but upon a rock-else the structure they reared could hardly have survived foreign aggressions, a disputed succession, and a civil war the greatest and most sanguinary of modern times. But their work was by human hands for human use, and even their wisdom could not guard it against the follies and the sins of all future custodians.

That gross blunders have been committed, blunders unaccountable in their origin and as yet unfathomable in their consequences, may be admitted, is indeed sorrowfully admitted by many, if not a majority of those who have nevertheless since contributed to keep their official authors in power. But blunders, however inexcusable or apparently injurious, must be deemed irretrievable only in the last resort, and heaven forbid any admission that the American republic can be wrecked by any one or even two administrations. The truth here, as almost always, lies between extremes-between ultra-conservatives and pessimists on the one hand and ultra-progressives and optimists on the other. The former would put back the hands of the clock

a hundred years-would have us live and act as if the conditions of the Washington and Marshall era were still about usin effect would have us tear up the railroad and sink the steamship and return the lightning to the heavens whence Franklin brought it down. The latter would have us believe that, to act well our part on the world-wide stage which alone limits the activities of modern civilized states, we must ape the fashionable international follies and vices of the period even to the point of warring upon, subjugating, and exploiting for trade purposes 8,000,000 of alien peoples in the Pacific seas, 7,000 miles from our own shores. Between these extremes lies the path of honor, of morality, of safety and of patriotism, and, notwithstanding present aberrations, the American people may be absolutely trusted sooner or later to find it and to walk in it. They will certainly not forget that this is the dawn of the Twentieth, not of the Nineteenth century. They will just as certainly determine that to be in touch with the best thought and temper of the time, to be the most truly progressive of all peoples, to do every duty and fulfill every function required by its high place in the world-they will certainly determine that to do and to be all this-neither means that the American nation must imitate the most questionable practices of other states nor requires any abandonment of American principles or American ideals. To believe or to hold otherwise is to despair of the Republic, and to despair of the Republic is to lose faith in humanity and in the future of the race.

The incalculable debt of the country to the two great Virginians, impossible of repayment, can never be too often or too emphatically recognized by the entire body of the American people. Upon the bar, however, devolves an especial duty, namely, to see to it that the merits of its incomparable chief are not obscured by the showier deeds of warriors and statesmen. The observance of this day, therefore, by the lawyers of the country generally is eminently appropriate, while we in this corner of the land are exceptionally favored in that Virginia has lent us for our celebration one of the foremost of her lawyers and citizens [Henry St. George Tucker]. In recognition of the honor of his presence and in appreciation of the immense services of his native State to the cause of a stable

and coherent nationality, I propose that the company rise and drink to the ever-increasing prosperity of the Commonwealth of Virginia and to the good health and long life of her distinguished representative on this occasion.

HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN

JOHN BURROUGHS'

Henry Fairfield Osborn is one of our most distinguished scientists and has been President of the Trustees of the American Museum of Natural History since 1908. He was born in Fairfield, Connecticut, in 1857; graduated from Princeton University in 1877 and holds advanced and honorary degrees from many American and European Universities. He is Director of many scientific and public organizations and the author of numerous papers and addresses. Among his larger and authoritative works are "The Age of Mammals" and "Men of the Old Stone Age." This address on John Burroughs was given at a public memorial meeting held by the American Academy and National Institute of Arts and Letters in New York, November 18, 1921. In introducing Mr. Osborn, President William M. Sloane of the Academy spoke as follows:

"There has been, among our American men of letters, but one John Burroughs. Essentially he was a man of the open air, at home among the woods, the fields, their denizens and their component parts, plants and trees; and animals, creeping, walking, or flying; above all, among the men who dwelt nearest to them. For us he was the essayist with all these as his themes, the recording secretary as it were, writing with a style all his own, clear, crisp, and adequate about that which is the essence of literature, the reaction between humanity and its home. Indeed when he was at his best in later years he was a philosopher, embracing in his thought and its expression the elements which compose into a map of life. So to-day in his honor we have, set forth by intimate friends, the aspects of John Burroughs as a writer, as a naturalist, and the man whose long activity made him renowned in the activities he pursued to the delight of readers, of nature lovers and of personal friends."

'Reprinted from the "Academy Notes and Monographs" by kind permission of the author and the Academy.

INDELIBLY stamped on my mind is the celebration of John Burroughs' seventy-fifth birthday in the Bird Hall of the American Museum of Natural History, when six hundred children of the New York East Side schools, Czechs, Hungarians, Poles, Slovaks, no trace of American stock among them, came to tell Burroughs how they loved him and his writings. Twelve bright girls and boys, each representing a volume of the edition of his collected works and wearing the name of the volume suspended in front, came forward and recited a verse or a bit of prose from the volume represented. Tears came into the eyes of "the good gray poet," Burroughs' own designation of Walt Whitman, as the love and admiration of the spirited children poured in upon him. The scene reflected the high purpose of literature, the interpretation of the spiritual and moral influences of Nature.

With a large following of grown men, a circle of admirers which included such extremes as Henry Ford and Theodore Roosevelt, Burroughs was preeminently the poet of the school children of America, his ability for humanizing his dumb friends of the animal world having caught the fancy of the children, thus giving him one of his claims to immortality in America, if not in other countries. It was his part in America to throw the light of Nature into the "prison-house," to use Wordsworth's phrase, which civilization throws around our youth:

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,

But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;

The Youth, who daily farther from the East
Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,

And by the vision splendid

Is on his way attended;

At length the Man perceives it die away,

And fade into the light of common day.

His fellow poet of nature, John Muir, though in his way a writer of large imagination, did not humanize his birds and