It has taken three centuries to explore and settle this country, and there are still parts of it in which those who live face the perils and hardships of pioneers. Ever since the war of the Revolution the skirmish line of civilisation has moved steadily forward from the Atlantic to the Pacific; and every man who has carried a rifle or an axe, who has defended his home against Indians or cut down trees, made a clearing, built a rude house and turned the prairie or the land taken from the forest into a farm, has had something of the hero in him. He has often been selfish, harsh and unjust; but he has been daring, full of endurance and with a capacity for heroic work; But he has never been alone; we see him always as he faces his foes or bears the strain of his work: we often forget that there was as much courage in the log house as on the firing line at the edge of the forest, and that the work indoors was harder in many ways than the work out of doors and far less varied and inspiriting. If we could get at the facts we should find that there have been more heroines than heroes in the long warfare of the race against foes within and without, and that the courage of women has had far less to stimulate it in dramatic or picturesque conditions or crises. It is much easier to make a perilous charge in full daylight, with flying banners and the music of bugles ringing across the field, than to hold a lonely post, in solitude at midnight, against a stealthy and unseen enemy. Boys do not need to be taught to admire the bold rush on the enemies' position, the brilliant and audacious passage through the narrow channel under the guns of masked batteries, the lonely march into Central Africa, the dash to the North Pole; they do need to be taught the heroism of those who give the hero his sword and then go home to wait for his return; who leave the stockade unarmed and, under a fire of poisoned arrows, run to the springs for water for a thirsting garrison; who quietly stay at their posts and as quietly die without the inspiration of dramatic achievement or of the heart-felt applause of spectators; who bear heavy burdens without a chance to drop or change them; who are heroically patient under blighting disappointments and are loyal to those who are disloyal to them; who bear terrible wrongs in silence, and conceal the cowardice of those they love and cover their retreat with a smiling courage which is the very soul of the pathos of unavailing heroism and undeserved failure.