Has it occurred to you what a relatively small and insignificant number of familiar acquaintances we are able in our daily life to have? How many men and women do you know who have guided the destinies of nations, led great armies into the field, or are to meet death in their attempts to overthrow the tyranny of a despot or a bigot? In history we may meet them, and become acquainted with their problems and struggles. The past is a select drawing-room into which we all may enter. We may derive inspiration from the same wells that prompted the Crusaders to set out time after time in their well-nigh fatal effort to drive the Moslems from Jerusalem; we may absorb the spirit that moved Cromwell’s Ironsides; we may appreciate the pettiness of our own weaknesses and vexations in comparison with the odds against which some of History’s heroes have fought and conquered. It is pleasant to live in the court of Louis XIV and to talk with kings and princes through the pages of St. Simon’s "Memoirs"; it is a spiritual tonic and excitement to follow the careers of the Indian Missionaries through Parkman’s glowing pages! It is in truth more downright "fun" than doing most things! Undoubtedly it is true that Napoleon’s ruthless ambition brought devastation to the lands that he conquered, and sorrow to the nation whose young men he led to the cannon’s mouth, and yet I sometimes think that greater than the Code Napoleon, which he instituted, is the inspiration that his career has been to the young men of all countries. How many boys have dreamed their vision of the future when following the work of the little Corsican, who at the age of twenty-seven led the armies of France across the Alps to crumple in a series of whirlwind campaigns the proud power of Austria. And there was William Pitt, the Younger, who at twenty-four became Prime Minister of England, one-armed and half-blind Nelson at Trafalgar Bay, Lincoln, the rail-splitting President, Olive, Garibaldi, Hampden, and how many another has been a light that beckons our future soldiers and statesmen? In every epoch of history we will find new horizons opened that will enrich and broaden our daily life; in every vital struggle we will find individuals and peoples who have acted in such a way that we should hope to be guided by them in our struggles and ambitions; in the failures of the past we may obtain moral lessons for the present and the future; in coördinating our forces and forming our judgments we will obtain a training for our minds which will be of use to every man in carrying out the enterprises in which he is engaged.