One of the first writers who made plain to the world the entrancing history of New France, which, as you know, is an earlier name for Canada, was the historian Francis Parkman. Parkman was born in Boston near the end of the eighteenth century. He devoted himself to historical research, and wrote a long series of books, many of the names of which are familiar to you. Some of the titles of these volumes written by Parkman are _Pioneers of France in the New World_, _The Jesuits in North America_, _The Discovery of the Great West_, _The Old Régime in Canada_, _Frontenac and New France Under Louis XIV_, and _The Conspiracy of Pontiac_. Parkman begins _The Conspiracy of Pontiac_, which he completed in 1851, with the paragraph quoted below. It is interesting to note the great changes which have come about on this continent {184} since Parkman wrote this history, nearly eighty years ago. "The Indian is a true child of the forest and the desert. The wastes and solitudes of nature are his congenial home. His haughty mind is imbued with the spirit of the wilderness, and the light of civilization falls on him with a blighting power. His unruly pride and untamed freedom are in harmony with the lonely mountains, cataracts and rivers among which he dwells; and primitive America, with her savage scenery and savage men, opens to the imagination a boundless world, unmatched in wild sublimity." Biography sometimes is closely related to history. When the life of a famous public man is written in such a way as to tell the story of how his actions have changed the history of his country, biography and history seem practically identical. The story of Queen Elizabeth is, one may say, the story, or history, of England during her reign. The same statement is partly true of the biography of Queen Victoria. It is true also of the life of any great public man in any country. Books of biography are widely read in this twentieth century. Most of the people you know read biographies. If we find the alcove in which are kept the newest books in the hall of history, we will discover on the shelves such volumes as Sir Sidney Lee's _Life of King Edward VII_, Mr. Lytton Strachey's _Queen Victoria_, his _Elisabeth and Essex_, and Mr. Philip Guedalla's _Life of Palmerston_. These are all clearly written, easy to read, condensed rather than long drawn out, based on sound historical {185} research and so fascinating that thousands of people begin to read them as soon as they are published. Here is a little book of history called _Gallipoli_, which was published in 1916. It was written by a poet, John Masefield, and it tells the story of the Australians when they fought on the Gallipoli Peninsula in the Great War. There are many notable histories of different campaigns in the War, but none surely will last longer than this small, noble book.