The work of those great captains of industry forming the group in the great painting, “Men of Progress,” was in evidence in every nook and corner of the Centennial Exposition. This great show impressed me as a splendid glorification of all kinds of wonderful mechanisms, driven by steam and animal power, which helped to develop the great resources of the United States. All scientific efforts exhibited there concerned themselves with the question of what things can do, rather than what they are. The show was also a glorification of the great men who first formulated, clearly stated, and fought for the ideals of the United States. I saw that fact proclaimed in many of the historical features of the exposition, and I did not fail to understand clearly that the show took place in Philadelphia because the Liberty Bell and the Declaration of Independence were first heard in Philadelphia. When I left Philadelphia and its show I carried away in my head a good bit of American history. The Americanization process which was going on within me was very much speeded up by what I saw at the Centennial Exposition. On my return to New York I told Jim, the fireman, that he was right when he said: “The English made us write the Declaration of Independence, and they also gave us the steam-engine with which we made our independence good.” But, instructed by my study of the lives of men who were represented in the painting “Men of Progress,” and by what I learned at the Philadelphia exposition of these men and of the leaders of the American Revolution, I suggested to Jim that the steam-engine without great men behind it would have been of little avail. “Yes,” said Jim, “the Declaration of Independence without men of character and brains behind it would also have been of little avail; and the great aims of the Civil War without men like Lincoln and Grant behind them would have ended in a foolish fizzle. This country, my lad,” exclaimed Jim with much warmth, “is a monument to the lives of the men of brains and character and action who made it.” Jim threw out this chunk of wisdom with the same ease and in the same offhand manner which he displayed when he threw a few shovelfuls of coal upon the busy fires under his boilers. To him it was an obvious truth; to a lad like myself, who was accustomed to look upon countries as monuments to kings and princes and their victorious armies, it was a revelation; and I said so. This brought from Jim another epigrammatic remark to the effect that my trip to America would teach me nothing if it did not teach me first to squeeze out of my mind all foolish European notions and make room for new ideas which I might pick up here and there in this new world. Jim’s sayings were always short and to the point and their record in my mind never faded.