William Webster Ellsworth is a man whose fame as a lecturer was not acquired through _The Century Magazine_, but who has helped to make _The Century_ what it is at this time. He has been secretary of the great corporation which publishes _The Century_ since its establishment by Roswell Smith. Mr. Ellsworth is of Puritan stock, a great-grandson of Chief Justice Ellsworth and of Noah Webster, and he was reared in Connecticut, a stamping-ground of Revolutionary heroes. A few years ago he found himself a recognized authority on Revolutionary subjects. It came about, I believe, through a publisher’s suggestion to an author. Mr. Ellsworth asked Elbridge S. Brooks to write a book for boys and girls on the Revolution, proposing that it should take the form of a trip to the battlefields, and he offered to go with Mr. Brooks. They made the trip together, and the photographs taken by Mr. Ellsworth were used as illustrations for “The Century Book of the American Revolution,” and were afterward made the basis of a lecture by Mr. Ellsworth which many of the societies of Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution promptly asked to hear. His position gave him access to private and public collections of manuscripts and printing, and with his heart in the subject Mr. Ellsworth has brought to light more interesting documents and pictures than were ever supposed to exist. Scores of lyceum, patriotic, and historical societies have had his two lectures, one on the Revolutionary War, and the other on “Arnold and Andre: the Story of the Treason,” which he prepared two years ago.