first diploma, the college numbered in the aggregate of all its classes fewer students than are found in the average single class of to-day. And in the meanwhile what have her alumni done for the alma mater? In 1853, when my apprenticeship began, the accumulated endowment of the more than two centuries which preceded amounted to less than one million of dollars; the gifts and the bequests of the forty-two years covered by my apprenticeship and travels have added to the one million over ten millions. And this, we were taught, was the "rag-gathering age" of a "trivial, jeering, withered, unbelieving" generation-at least, it gave.

Thus, as I stand here to-day in the high places of the University and try to speak of the lessons and the theories of life which my travels have taught me as I pause for a brief space by the well-remembered college steps which more than forty classes have since gone up and descended, and, while doing so, look back over the long vista of probation, my impulse is to bear witness to the greatness and splendor, not to the decadence and meanness, of the age of which I have been a part. My eyes, too, have seen great men accomplishing great resultsI have lived and done journeyman work in a time than which none history records have been more steadfast and faithful in labor, more generous in gift or more fruitful in results; none so beneficent, none so philanthropic, none more heroic of purpose, none more romantic in art.

More than thirty years ago, while those cannon of Gettysburg were booming in my ears, sounding the diapason of that desperate onslaught to which I have already referred, there came up in my memory these lines from the "Samson Agonistes" :All is best, though we oft doubt, What th' unsearchable dispose

Of highest wisdom brings about,

And ever best found in the close.

Oft he seems to hide his face,

But unexpectedly returns,

And to his faithful champion will in place

Bear witness gloriously.

These lines, I say, I repeated over and over to myself, somewhat mechanically, I suppose, in the dust and heat and crash

of that July day. I was younger then; I am young no longer. But, now as then, those verses from Milton's triumphant choral bring to me, clad in seventeenth-century words and thought, the ideas of evolution, continuity, environment and progression, and, above and beyond all, abiding faith in man and in our mother age, which are the lamps the last half of the nineteenth century has lit whereby the steps of the twentieth century shall be guided. [Applause.]

JANE ADDAMS

WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY

Jane Addams is probably the best known woman in the United States. She has long been connected with the social settlement at Hull House in Chicago and has spoken and written on subjects of political and social reform. The speech which follows was given at the dinner at the Union League Club, Chicago, February 23, 1903. Her speech "Seconding the Nomination of Roosevelt for President, 1912," is in Volume VIII and her tribute to Henry Lloyd in Volume IX.

WE meet together upon these birthdays of our great men, not only to review their lives, but to revive and cherish our own patriotism. This matter is a difficult task. In the first place, we are prone to think that by merely reciting these great deeds we get a reflected glory, and that the future is secure to us because the past has been so fine.

In the second place, we are apt to think that we inherit the fine qualities of those great men, simply because we have had a common descent and are living in the same territory.

As for the latter, we know full well that the patriotism of common descent is the mere patriotism of the clan-the early patriotism of the tribe. We know that the possession of a like territory is merely an advance upon that, and that both of them are unworthy to be the patriotism of a great cosmopolitan nation whose patriotism must be large enough to obliterate racial distinction and to forget that there are such things as surveyor's lines. Then when we come to the study of great men it is easy to think only of their great deeds, and not to think enough of their spirit. What is a great man who has made his mark upon history? Every time, if we think far enough, he is a man who has looked through the confusion of the moment and has seen the moral issue involved; he is a man who has

refused to have his sense of justice distorted; he has listened to his conscience until conscience becomes a trumpet call to like-minded men, so that they gather about him and together, with mutual purpose and mutual aid, they make a new period in history.

Let us assume for a moment that if we are going to make this day of advantage to us, we will have to take this definition of a great man. We will have to appeal to the present as well as to the past. We will have to rouse our national consciences as well as our national pride, and we will all have to remember that it lies with the young people of this nation whether or not it is going to go on to a finish in any wise worthy of its beginning.

If we go back to George Washington, and ask what he would be doing were he bearing our burdens now, and facing our problems at this moment, we would, of course, have to study his life bit by bit; his life as a soldier, as a statesman, and as a simple Virginia planter.

First, as a soldier. What is it that we admire about the soldier? It certainly is not that he goes into battle; what we admire about the soldier is that he has the power of losing his own life for the life of a larger cause; that he holds his personal suffering of no account; that he flings down in the gage of battle his all, and says, "I will stand or fall with this cause." That, it seems to me, is the glorious thing we most admire, and if we are going to preserve that same spirit of the soldier, we will have to found a similar spirit in the civil life of the people, the same pride in civil warfare, the spirit of courage, and the spirit of self-surrender which lies back of this.

If we look out upon our national perspective, do we not see certainly one great menace which calls for patriotism? We see all around us a spirit of materialism-an undue emphasis put upon material possessions; an inordinate desire to win wealth; an inordinate fear of losing wealth; an inordinate desire to please those who are the possessors of wealth. Now, let us say, if we feel that this is a menace, that with all our power, with all the spirit of a soldier, we will arouse highminded youth of this country against this spirit of materialism.

We will say to-day that we will not count the opening of markets the one great field which our nation is concerned in, but that when our flag flies anywhere it shall fly for righteousness as well as for increased commercial prosperity; that we will see to it that no sin of commercial robbery shall be committed where it floats; that we shall see to it that nothing in our commercial history will not bear the most careful scrutiny and investigation; that we will restore commercial life, however complicated, to such honor and simple honesty as George Washington expressed in his business dealings.

Let us take, for a moment, George Washington as a statesman. What was it he did, during those days when they were framing a constitution, when they were meeting together night after night, and trying to adjust the rights and privileges of every class in the community? What was it that sustained him during all those days, all those weeks, during all those months and years? It was the belief that they were founding a nation on the axiom that all men are created free and equal. What would George Washington say if he found that among us there were causes constantly operating against that equality? If he knew that any child which is thrust prematurely into industry has no chance in life with children who are preserved from that pain and sorrow; if he knew that every insanitary street, and every insanitary house, cripples a man so that he has no health and no vigor with which to carry on his life labor; if he knew that all about us are forces making against skill, making against the best manhood and womanhood, what would he say? He would say that if the spirit of equality means anything, it means like opportunity, and if we once lose like opportunity we lose the only chance we have toward equality throughout the nation.

Let us take George Washington as a citizen. What did he do when he retired from office, because he was afraid holding office any longer might bring a wrong to himself and harm to his beloved nation? We say that he went back to his plantation on the Potomac. What were his thoughts during the all too short days that he lived there? He thought of many possibilities, but, looking out over his country, did he fear that they should rise up a crowd of men who held office, not for