His first statue was the “Minute Man,” erected on the old battle-field at Concord in 1875. The young farmer is standing with one hand upon the plow and in the other grasping a musket, his head alert, as if he were waiting for a summons, the body held ready to advance. Though a work of immaturity and giving little promise of its author’s subsequent accomplishment, it yet has something of the sweet uplifting of sentiment that will reappear later with more assurance of conviction and with maturer technical expression. The next important work was the seated figure of John Harvard, unveiled at Cambridge in 1884. During that interval of nine years French had made extraordinary progress. Whether we consider the conception of the personality or the character of the technique, this statue is the work of a man who has attained to a realization of his true bent and to a freedom and force of craftsmanship. The dignity of quietude, a self-contained aloofness, the tender graciousness of a refined spirit, a gentle, unforced sincerity--these are the qualities [Illustration: DEATH AND THE SCULPTOR By Daniel Chester French From the Milmore Monument, Forest Hills Cemetery, Boston] [Illustration: DETAIL OF THE CLARK MONUMENT By Daniel Chester French Forest Hills Cemetery] in himself which the sculptor has imparted to this figure. He has represented in it the fine flower of Puritan scholarship and devotion to the higher claims of humanity. It is impossible not to detect in this characterisation an echo of the sculptor’s own early memories, and more or less they abide with him up to the present time. In correspondence with the development of his own ideals is that of his technique. It has acquired a breadth and unity of feeling, a regard for the mass and a tact of choice in the selection of details, a mingling of suavity and monumental stability, a disposition of the drapery, natural and yet enriched with elegant surprises. The statue is at once imposing and full of grace.