It is not my purpose here to discuss at length the career of the mighty King and mighty General whose statue we have just received. In all history no other great commander save only Hannibal fought so long against such terrible odds, and while Hannibal finally failed, Frederick finally triumphed. In almost every battle he fought against great odds, and he almost always won the victory. When defeated he rose to an even greater altitude than when victorious. The memory of the Seven Years’ War will last as long as there lives in mankind the love of heroism, and its operations will be studied to the minutest detail as long as the world sees a soldier worthy of the name. It is difficult to know whether to admire most the victories of Leuthen and Prague, Rossbach and Zorndorf, or the heartbreaking campaigns after Kunersdorf, when the great King, after having been beaten to the ground by the banded might of Europe, yet rose again and by an exhibition of skill, tenacity, energy, and daring such as had never before been seen united in one person, finally wrested triumph from defeat. Not only must the military scholar always turn to the career of Frederick the Great for lessons in strategy and tactics; not only must the military administrator always turn to his career for lessons in organizing success; not only will the lover of heroism read the tales of his mighty feats as long as mankind cares for heroic deeds; but even those who are not attracted by the valor of the soldier must yet, for the sake of the greatness of the man, ponder and admire the lessons taught by his undaunted resolution, his inflexible tenacity of purpose, his farsighted grasp of lofty possibilities, and his unflinching, unyielding determination in following the path he had marked out. It is eminently fitting that the statue of this iron soldier, this born leader of men, should find a place in this War College; for when soldierly genius and soldierly heroism reach the highest point of achievement the man in whom they are displayed grows to belong not merely to the nation from which he sprang, but to all nations capable of showing, and therefore capable of appreciating, the virile and masterful virtues which alone make victors in those dread struggles where resort is at last had to the arbitrament of arms.