The question will be, how to make the Fourth of July a true festival, a national solemnity, without forgetting the claims of the young to be amused, as well as to be instructed. In the first place, I should think that the day might fitly be made one of reunion, by different clubs and associations of culture and philanthropy. Those whose thoughts go deep enough to understand the true conditions of human freedom, might meet and compare their studies and experiences. Very fitly, after such a meeting, each individual of them might seek a group, to whose members he might present a popular statement of the philosophy of freedom. Mothers, who should be the true guardians of peace, might well come together to study all that promotes its maintenance. In gatherings of older children, prize essays might be presented and discussed. I can imagine civic banquets, of a serious and stately character, in which men and women might sit together and pledge each other, in the exhilaration of friendship and good feeling. I would have processions, but I would have them less military in character, and more pacific in suggestion. Congregations of the various religious confessions might walk in order, headed by their ministers, who should all exchange the right hand of fellowship with each other. I would have no monster concerts, which cannot be fully enjoyed, but divers assemblages, at which music of the highest order should be presented. Letters of greeting should be exchanged between cities and states, and the device of the day should be, “In the Name of the Republic.” The history of the war which culminated in our national independence should be amply illustrated by graphic lectures, and possibly by living pictures. Mr. John Fiske has an admirable talent for bringing the past and its heroes as vividly before us as if he himself had seen them but the day before. If it were possible to multiply his valued personality, I would have many sketches given in various places, of the brave struggle of our forefathers and of those who were foremost in it. “Going out of town to avoid the Fourth,” has been a phrase so common in my time that it ceases to awaken attention, and is taken as a matter of course. I cannot indeed wonder that people of refined tastes and sensitive nerves should seek to free themselves from the noise and crowd of the usual observance. The question is whether, with a wiser administration, the same people might not be led to gather, rather than to disperse for the celebration. How would the following programme answer? On the evening of the third of July, quiet gatherings in halls or churches, in which the true love of country should be explained and illustrated. How many a name, half or wholly forgotten, would then be recalled from oblivion, and with it the labor and sacrifice of some noble life, some example precious for the community!