“To Clara Barton’s First Aid,” thus addressed, are many letters which arrive at the headquarters of The National First Aid Association of America in Arlington, Massachusetts. Although not the corporate name of the last great work of Clara Barton, it serves the purpose of demonstrating that First Aid and Clara Barton are inseparable. The real tribute of Clara Barton to the organization, which is today paying tribute to her, lies in the following words of welcome which she delivered at the second annual meeting of The National First Aid Association of America in 1907, as its President. Opening her address by reading a letter from former field workers, she continued:— “They are not with us, and I have given this soulful letter in their place. “I have read it because it speaks the silent sentiment of a body of people, few of whom are here, and few of whom you know. From far off scattered homes they watch the flickering blaze of this new bonfire, with an anxious tender interest you little dream of. Below its sparkling flame they see the embers from which it springs. They live over again the terrible fields of woe where the sufferers suffered, and the dying died; where, in the moment of consternation paralyzing the whole land, they stood, the sudden vanguard of order and relief, till other help could reach—never asking for help—never shouting for aid nor money, but trusting to the great hearts of the people to render what they had to render, when they should understand the need. This, friends, was First Aid, and the people were the doctors. We held life in the injured till they could be reached. “Did our method fail? Let the old friends answer. Was a more satisfactory relief record ever made? Let the swollen Ohio and Mississippi, Johnstown, the Sea Islands, Armenia, and Galveston make reply. It was the foundation of knowledge through experience gained there and then that makes this work and this day possible. These are the smouldering embers watched from afar. “But this, friends, is the giving, and the teaching of mere material aid for human suffering; all to be done over and over again to the end of time, and no one the wiser, no one knowing any better what to do than before. This was charity. Blessed be it for ‘the greatest of these is charity.’ Leave it to do its work in its own way. “But out of this has come to us another feature of human beneficence, having its foundation in knowledge; when one shall know, not only how to give, but how to do, and possibly prevent; when every man may understand his wounded brother’s need and how to meet it; when the mother shall know how to save her child in accident; when even the child shall be taught how to lessen the pain or to save the life of its playmate—then comes the real help.