In ancient days woman was the cultivator of the soil, the guardian of the fire, the creator of the home, the oracle of the Temple, and not infrequently the leader of men. Countless women in closing their career could similarly say as, according to Greek legend, said Semiramis: “Nature gave me the form of a woman, my actions have raised me to the level of the most valiant of men.” Artemisia was a heroine, wise in the councils of war, and had Xerxes not scoffed her advice he would not have gone down to eternal disgrace at Salamis. Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, who of her two sons said “These are my jewels,” lives honored as the highest type of Roman motherhood. [Illustration: THE OXFORD, MASSACHUSETTS, MEMORIAL BUILDING “A memorial to the defenders of the Union from Oxford, Mass.” The building in which were held the funeral ceremonies for Clara Barton April 15, 1912, and the Clara Barton Memorial Exercises, Memorial Day, 1917. ] [Illustration: THE INSIDE OF MEMORIAL BUILDING, OXFORD, MASSACHUSETTS Scene on the stage, on the occasion of the Clara Barton Memorial Exercises, Memorial Day, 1917; also where were held the funeral exercises for Clara Barton, April 15, 1912. ] To a woman Rome was indebted for her republic; to a woman, the legal right of plebeians to become office-holders in the Roman Commonwealth; to a woman, the inspiration of Dante in transmitting to the world the Divine Comedy; to a woman, who pawned her jewels that she might finance Columbus, must be accorded the discovery of America; to a woman, the saving of the colonists of Jamestown and the colony’s future existence; to a woman America owes the Treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo; to a woman, the Sisters of Charity in the United States with its thousands of angels of mercy; to a woman, the foundation of Christian Science to which is anchored the hope of millions; to a woman, known as the “Grandmother of the Revolution,” the revolt against tyranny by autocracy in Russia; to a woman, the American Red Cross with its millions of humanists. So vital to the human race is labor that in the centuries of the classic past gods and goddesses supervised the various fields of human effort. Such was the dignity of labor that even a toiling ox was regarded sacred, and whoever killed this companion of toiling man was punishable with death. There is dignity in labor Truer than e’er pomp arrayed.