Mr. Bryce touches it when he proceeds: "Washington, indeed, is a far more perfect character. Washington stands alone and unapproachable, like a snow-peak rising above its fellows into the clear air of morning, with a dignity, constancy, and purity which have made him the ideal type of civic virtue to succeeding generations. No greater benefit could have befallen the republic than to have such a type set from the first before the eye and mind of the people." That benefit is incalculable, and it will be acknowledged with every form of stately ceremonial and of eloquent enthusiasm during this year. The great event of 1789 was Washington's inauguration as President, and it is the most important event in the annals of the city. The cosmopolitan character of the city from its settlement and in the early time of the little town, when it was said that more than a dozen different languages were spoken in its streets, down to the present, when it is the third or fourth city in size upon the globe, has always checked the sentiment of local pride which is so great a force in the development of a community. Among all the original States New York has seemed to care least for its significant events and its great men. That the Revolution was tactically largely a contest for the control of the Hudson, that the contest culminated at Saratoga, and that the new national order which resulted from the Revolution began in the city of New York, are facts which are known, indeed, but which have not grown into a proud tradition universally cherished and constantly repeated and celebrated like similar great events in New England. This year, however, the last event, Washington's inauguration, will be the occasion of a great national observance. The President and cabinet, Senators and Representatives and judges, distinguished delegates from every State, will attend, and there will be religious and oratorical exercises and civil and military display. One fact, indeed, invests such a celebration with especial triumph. It is that while the government which was organized a hundred years ago was unprecedented in form and wholly untried in the experience of states, and while it was regarded with interest but with incredulity as essentially unequal to the great shocks of fate to which other states have succumbed, it has passed, within the century, not only unshaken but strengthened, through the most tremendous and prolonged ordeal to which such a government could be submitted.