promptly on time when school begins, but that every one of us ought also to be in his seat. We will vote that, as long as we go to school, no one can be absent without some good reason."

"Very well," the principal might reply, "I like your rules. They are just as good as my rules are. Let us call them our rules, and let us first vote for them, and then let us all try to keep them."

We do not even like to guess what would happen if all the laws of the land were suspended for a single week. To be sure, most people would go on as before, and behave themselves perfectly well. But a very few mischievous people might make much costly trouble. What if half-crazy men should get drunk and go through the streets firing revolvers into the crowd? Or what if mischief-makers should set fire to buildings? No people that we have ever heard of have tried the experiment of living without any laws.

No

Where do our American laws come from? great master or king makes them and forces us to keep them. No little committee of wise men tells us common people that we must do what they bid us. The laws are our laws. Some of them have come down from very ancient times. Our forefathers used them for hundreds of years. They seem so good and sacred that men have often reverently said that "God taught them to men." The law not to murder, the law not to steal, the laws to keep ourselves pure, the laws not

to injure our neighbors-these are the laws of intelligent and civilized men all over the world. We say that those who do not keep these grand and ancient laws are barbarians or savages.

Some of our laws have grown. There were new needs, and new laws had to be made to meet these needs. Thus, there were no laws about keeping the streets clean till men found out that filthy streets breed disease. There could have been no laws about clearing the sidewalks of dust or rubbish in the days, not so long ago, when men had no sidewalks in their cities. There were no laws about railroads till the age of steam came in.

All the laws, however they came, whether they are old or new, are our laws. They belong to all the people; they are for the sake of all of us, for the poor even more, if possible, than the rich. We vote for the laws; or we vote for the men who make them; or we vote for the government that carries out and enforces the laws.

If any law happens not to seem to all of us quite fair, we can petition, like the pupils in a school, to have that law altered and made right. We can go to work and persuade others to join us in getting that law changed. But as long as the majority of the people vote to retain the law, no one has any selfish right to suspend it and make disorder and trouble for all the rest.

Along the low banks of the Mississippi River they build great embankments, or levees, to keep the waters from overflowing the land and sweeping away the farmer's crops and his buildings. Our laws are like the vast levees that curb the water of the river. Our laws defend our homes, our lives, our property. Whoever breaks a law is like the man who cuts the levee and lets the water run through. The harm and the cost come upon all of us.

You see, good rules do not take away our liberty. When the school for a single day suspends all its rules, freedom is taken away. No one any longer can possibly read or study; everyone is forced to be disturbed. The rules restore liberty. It is not true liberty to be allowed to spoil the school. True liberty is to be free to enjoy the privileges of the school. It is liberty to be able in quiet to read, to write, to study, to recite lessons.

So in the city, it is liberty to be able to go about one's business and not to be disturbed by any one. It is liberty to be able to walk in the streets, without fear, by night as well as by day. It is liberty to be able to display goods in the shop windows without danger of being robbed. It is liberty to be able to travel across the continent to the Pacific Ocean, and to find protection wherever one goes. Our laws give us Americans this great liberty. The only demand made of us is that we obey the laws as we wish others to obey them.

Some laws are for our convenience. Thus, if we are driving in a carriage or riding a bicycle, there is a rule or law to turn to the right in meeting another vehicle. Suppose we had no law on our roads and one could go to the right or left as he liked. Do you not see at once how teams and riders would run into each other?

Sometimes careless people think that they can break the rule "just once," and turn the wrong way. Or they venture to ride on crowded streets faster than the law allows. Many bad accidents happen to innocent persons, when selfish or reckless men dare to break the laws which are for the safety and convenience of all of us.

The laws are like the tracks on which the carwheels run. As long as the car keeps upon its track it will run swiftly and safely.

-CHARLES F. DOLE.

suspend'ed: caused to cease for a time.—major'ity: more than half.

WARREN'S ADDRESS TO THE

AMERICAN SOLDIERS

Stand! the ground's your own, my braves!

Will ye give it up to slaves?

Will ye look for greener graves?

Hope ye mercy still?

What's the mercy despots feel?
Hear it in that battle-peal!
Read it on yon bristling steel!
Ask it,-ye who will.

Fear ye foes who kill for hire?
Will ye to your homes retire?
Look behind you! they're afire!
And, before you, see

Who have done it!-From the vale

On they come!—And will ye quail?—
Leaden rain and iron hail

Let their welcome be!

In the God of battles trust!

Die we may-and die we must; -
But, O, where can dust to dust

Be consigned so well,

As where Heaven its dews shall shed
On the martyred patriot's bed,

And the rocks shall raise their head,

Of his deeds to tell!

-JOHN PIERPONT.

des'pots: tyrants, unjust rulers.-consigned': given over, intrusted.