than once demonstrated the wisdom of the farseeing Washington.

West Point is the realization of Washington's plans for a national school of military instruction. To-day it represents to the country the important features of that plan for a National University. By his last will and testament, Washington bequeathed the fifty shares of stock in the Potomac Company to the establishment of a National University in the central part of the United States; he made provision that until such a university should be founded the fund should be self-accumulating by the use of the dividends in the purchase of more stock, to still further augment the endowment fund. In the transfers and changes of commercial life apparent record of that stock has been lost, yet that last will bequeathed an ideal which in indirect ways is still inspiring our national educational system.

Let us take our place by the side of a student of our national history and institutions, as after a walk through the buildings across that noble plain at West Point he sits down to meditate, on the granite steps of the "Battle Monument." He is where the history of yesterday abides, but about him is represented the strength and life of the nation, and the strong military figures of officers, cadets, and soldiers from every section of our country. He feels the wisdom of that great desire of Washington's that the life and thought of the widely separated sections of the rising empire should become homogeneous and unified by the meeting of the young men of the land in a central school, during

the years of training for the country's service at arms. This student of history would feel how that hope had been fulfilled by the loyal service which the sons of West Point to so large a degree rendered the Union in its days of peril; and with deep gratitude would he acknowledge that enthusiastic loyalty with which the North and South, the East and West, as represented at West Point and throughout the country, rushed to its service to release those islands of the sea from the thraldom and tyranny of a medieval monarchy.

Then the vista of the future would open before him, and he would see that larger hope and plan of Washington's realized in the city of his name. There in that center in the Nation's life he would see young men assembling in the national schools of administration, commerce, consular service, and finance, to study questions of government and international relations. He would see reaching to all the lands of earth a peace more beautiful than that of the river below him; and wider and deeper than that Western ocean where now is flying our flag of hope and promise.

ADDRESS AT THE DEDICATION OF THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT

BY JOHN W. DANIEL

Delivered in the Hall of the House of Representatives, February 21, 1885

Mr. President of the United States, Senators, Representatives, Judges, Mr. Chairman, and My Countrymen :-Alone in its grandeur stands forth the character of Washington in history; alone like some peak that has no fellow in the mountain range of greatness.

"Washington," said Guizot, "Washington did the two greatest things which in politics it is permitted to man to attempt. He maintained by peace the independence of his country, which he had conquered by war. He founded a free government in the name of the principles of order and by reestablishing their sway." Washington did, indeed, do these things. But he did more. Out of disconnected fragments, he molded a whole, and made it a country. He achieved his country's independence by the sword. He maintained that independence by peace as by war. He finally established both his country and its freedom in an enduring frame of constitutional government, fashioned to make liberty and union one and inseparable. These four things together constitute the unexampled achievement of Washington.

The world has ratified the profound remark of Fisher Ames, that "he changed mankind's ideas of political greatness." It has approved the opinion of Edward Everett, that he was "the greatest of good men, and the best of great men." It has felt for him, with Erskine, "an awful reverence." It has attested the declaration of Brougham that he was the greatest man of his own or of any age."

Conquerors who have stretched your scepter over boundless territories; founders of empires who have held your dominions in the reign of law; reformers who have cried aloud in the wilderness of oppression; teachers who have striven to cast down. false doctrines, heresy, and schism; statesmen whose brains have throbbed with mighty plans for the amelioration of human society; scar-crowned vikings of the sea, illustrious heroes of the land, who have borne the standards of siege and battle, come forth in bright array from your glorious fanes, and would ye be measured by the measure of his stature? Behold you not in him a more illustrious and more venerable presence? Statesman, soldier, patriot, sage, reformer of creeds; teacher of truth and justice, achiever and preserver of liberty, the first of men, founder and saviour of his country, father of his people-this is he, solitary and unapproachable in his grandeur! Oh, felicitous Providence that gave to America our Washington!

High soars into the sky to-day, higher than the pyramid or the dome of St. Paul's or St. Peter's

the loftiest and most imposing structure that man has ever reared-high soars into the sky to where -“Earth highest yearns to meet a star" the monument which " We the people of the United States " have uplifted to his memory. It is a fitting monument, more fitting than any statue. For his image could only display him in some one phase of his varied character. So art has fitly typified his exalted life in yon plain, lofty shaft. Such is his greatness, that only by a symbol could it be represented. As Justice must be blind in order to be whole in contemplation, so History must be silent that by this mighty sign she may disclose the amplitude of her story.

No sum could now be made of Washington's character that did not exhaust language of its tributes and repeat virtue by all her names. No sum could be made of his achievements that did not unfold the history of his country and its institutions -the history of his age and its progress-the history of man and his destiny to be free. But, whether character or achievement be regarded, the riches before us only expose the poverty of praise. So clear was he in his great office that no ideal of the leader or ruler can be formed that does not shrink by the side of the reality. And so has he impressed himself upon the minds of men, that no man can justly aspire to be the chief of a great, free people, who does not adopt his principles and emulate his example. We look with amazement on such eccentric characters as Alexander, Cæsar,