In all that Mary Antin writes and in all that she says her faith in her country and her zeal for its honor shine out above all else. To the new pilgrims who lived and suffered in other lands before they sought refuge in America, as well as to those who can say quite literally, "Land where my fathers died," she brings this message: "We must strive to be worthy of our great heritage as American citizens so that we may use wisely and well its wonderful privileges. To be alive in America is to ride on the central current of the river of modern life; and to have a conscious purpose is to hold the rudder that steers the ship of fate." A CAMPFIRE INTERPRETER: ALICE C. FLETCHER Ho! All ye heavens, all ye of the earth, I bid ye hear me! Into your midst has come a new life; Consent ye! Consent ye all, I implore! Make its path smooth, then shall it travel beyond the four hills. _Omaha Tribal Rite._ Translated by Alice C. Fletcher. A CAMPFIRE INTERPRETER A great poet once tried to look into the future and picture the kind of people who might some day live upon the earth--people wiser and happier than we are because they shall have learned through our mistakes and carried to success our beginnings, and so have come to understand fully many things that we see dimly as through a mist. These people Tennyson calls the "crowning race": Of those that eye to eye shall look On knowledge; under whose command Is Earth and Earth's, and in their hand Is Nature like an open book. You see he believed that the way to gain command of Earth is through learning to read the open book of Nature. That book is closed to most of us to-day, but we are just beginning to spell out something of its message, and as we begin to understand we feel that it is not a strange speech but our own true mother tongue, which ears, deafened by the noise of the busy world, have almost ceased to hear and understand. There comes a time, however, when we feel "the call of the wild." We long to get away from the hoarse cries of engines, and the grinding roar of turning wheels, to a quiet that is unbroken even by a passing motor horn. Have you ever found yourself for a happy half-hour alone among the great trees of the friendly woods? You must have felt that in getting near to Nature you were finding yourself. Did not the life of the trees, of the winged creatures of the branches, of the cool mossy ground itself, seem a part of your life? Have you ever climbed a hill when it seemed that the wind was blowing something of its own strength and freshness into your soul? Did you not feel as if you were mounting higher and higher into the air and lifting the sky with you? Have you ever found yourself at evening in a great clear open place where the tent of the starry heavens over your head seemed nearer than the shadowy earth and all the things of the day?