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His time was employed in action chiefly, reading little, and that only in agriculture and English history. His correspondence became necessarily extensive, and, with journalizing his agricultural proceedings, occupied most of his leisure hours within-doors.

On the whole, his character was, in its mass, perfect, in nothing bad, in few points indifferent; and it may truly be said that never did nature and fortune combine more perfectly to make a man great, and to place him in the same constellation with whatever worthies have merited from man an ever60 lasting remembrance.

For his was the singular destiny and merit of leading the armies of his country successfully through an arduous war for the establishment of its independence; of conducting its councils through the birth of a government, new in its forms 35 and principles, until it had settled down into a quiet and orderly train; and of scrupulously obeying the laws through the whole of his career, civil and military, of which the history of the world furnishes no other example.

HELPS TO STUDY.

Biographical: Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826, was a native of Vir. ginia. He was Governor of Virginia, Minister to France, Secretary of State in Washington's Cabinet, Vice-President and President. He wrote the Declaration of Independence and was the founder of the University of Virginia. He was a fine scholar, a good violinist, a skillful horseman and an accurate marksman with a rifle. His influence was clearly felt in the framing of the Constitution, though he was in France at that time. His speeches were sound in policy and clear in statement.

Notes and Questions.

What qualities made Washington

a successful general?

What does the author say is the strongest feature of his character?

Tell about the personal appear ance of Washington.

What can you say of his conversational powers?

What were Washington's chief public services?

A thoughtful mind, when it sees a nation's flag, sees not the flag only, but the nation itself; and whatever may be its symbols, its insignia, he reads chiefly in the flag the government, the principles, the truths, the history, which belong to 5 the nation which sets it forth.

When the French tricolor rolls out to the wind, we see France. When the new-found Italian flag is unfurled, we see resurrected Italy. When the other three-cornered Hungarian flag shall be lifted to the wind, we shall see in it the 10 long buried but never dead principles of Hungarian liberty. When the united crosses of St. Andrew and St. George on a fiery ground set forth the banner of Old England, we see not the cloth merely; there rises up before the mind the noble aspect of that monarchy, which, more than any other on the 15 globe, has advanced its banner for liberty, law, and national prosperity.

This nation has a banner too; and wherever it streamed abroad, men saw daybreak bursting on their eyes, for the American flag has been the symbol of liberty, and men rejoiced in o 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

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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 stand first, and then 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 30 shine out together. And wherever the flag comes, and meʼn behold it, they see in its sacred emblazonry no rampant lion and fierce eagle, but only LIGHT, and every fold significant of liberty.

The history of this banner is all on one side. Under it rode Washington and his armies; before it Burgoyne laid down his 35 arms. It waved on the highlands at West Point; it floated over old Fort Montgomery. When Arnold would have surrendered these valuable fortresses and precious legacies, his night was turned into day, and his treachery was driven away by the beams of light from this starry banner.

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It cheered our army, driven from New York, in their solitary pilgrimage through New Jersey. It streamed in light over 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 des45 pondency of the nation. And when, at length, 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.

Let us then twine each thread of the glorious tissue of our 50 country's flag about our heartstrings; and looking upon our homes and catching the spirit that breathes upon us from the battlefields of our fathers, let us resolve, come weal or woe, we will, in life and in death, now and forever, stand by the Stars and Stripes. They have been unfurled from the snows of 55 Canada to the plains of New Orleans, in the halls of the Montezumas and amid the solitude of every sea; and everywhere, as the luminous symbol of resistless and beneficent power, they have led the brave to victory and to glory. They have floated

over our cradles; let it be our prayer and our struggle that they 60 shall float over our graves.

HELPS TO STUDY.

Biographical: Henry Ward Beecher, 1813-1887, was a native of Connecticut and a son of the well-known Lyman Beecher. He was a graduate of Amherst College and of Lane Theological Seminary. For forty years he was pastor of Plymouth Congregational Church, Brooklyn. He was one of the greatest orators of his time.

For your country, boy, and for that flag, never dream a dream, but of serving her as she bids you, though the service carry you through a thousand terrors. No matter what happens to you, no matter who flatters you or who abuses you, never look 5 at another flag, never let a night pass but you pray God to bless that flag. Remember, boy, that behind all these men you have to deal with, behind officers, and government, and people even, there is the Country Herself, your Country, and that you belong to Her as you belong to your own mother. Stand by Her, boy, 10 as you would stand by your mother.

This is an extract from "The Man Without a Country," by Edward Everett Hale.

TALES OF A GRANDFATHER

SIR WALTER SCOTT

THE STORY OF SIR WILLIAM WALLACE.

(1296-1305.)

Biographical and Historical: Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh, August 15, 1771. He spent most of his childhood on his grandfather's farm at Sandy-Knowe. He soon became familiar with all the ballads and legends of that part of Scotland, and these, with Bishop Percy's collection of ballads which he read later, exerted a strong influence on his life.

In 1802 he published two volumes of his "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border." For about ten years he continued to write poems and then began the series of prose fiction known as the "Waverley Novels." The "Tales of a Grandfather' were written for his grandson, John Hugh Lockhart, whom he calls Hugh Littlejohn. The extracts here given are selections from these tales, arranged so as to make a connected story. Sir Walter Scott died in 1832 and was buried in Dryburgh Abbey.

William Wallace was none of the high nobles of Scotland, but the son of a private gentleman, called Wallace of Ellerslie, in Renfrewshire, near Paisley. He was very tall and handsome, and one of the strongest and bravest men that ever 5 lived. He had a very fine countenance, with a quantity of fair hair, and was particularly dexterous in the use of all weapons which were then employed in battle. Wallace, like all Scotsmen of high spirit, had looked with great indignation upon the usurpation of the crown by Edward, and upon the insolences 10 which the English soldiers committed on his countrymen. It is said, that when he was very young, he went a-fishing for sport in the river of Irvine, near Ayr. He had caught a good many trouts, which were carried by a boy, who attended him with a fishing-basket, as is usual with anglers. Two or three 15 English soldiers, who belonged to the garrison of Ayr, came