Whatever might have happened previous to the voyage from Palos, and whatever might have been the extent of Columbus' knowledge, the discovery of America for the purposes of settlement and civilization, was made by Columbus himself at eight o'clock in the evening of October 11, O. S., when he saw the shimmer of fire on the Island of San Salvador. That fact being established, the fact of the existence of land near by was established also. The sight of land at three o'clock next morning was not the discovery; it was evidence only of the reality of the discovery made by Columbus the evening before. In these four hundred years the empires that Spain founded in the New World have slipped from her grasp; the church has lost its temporal power, but the fame of Columbus has spread more and more widely and his claims to the gratitude of mankind have been recognized more generally. At the end of each coming century, and for many centuries, no one can foresay how many, millions on millions in the Americas and in Europe will unite in rendering tribute of praise to the enthusiast and adventurer whose limited ambitions for himself were never realized, but who opened to mankind the opportunity to found states freed from the domination of the church and churches freed from the domination of the state. We do not deceive ourselves, when we claim for the United States the first place among the states on this continent. We are the first of American states in population, in wealth, in our system of public instruction, in our means of professional and technical education, in the application of science to the practical purposes of life, and finally, in experience and success in the business of government. It should not be forgotten by any of us, nor should the fact be overlooked or neglected by the young that these results have been gained by the labors and sacrifices of our ancestors, and we should realize that the task of preserving what has been won, is the task that is imposed upon the generations as they succeed each other in the great drama of national life. Vain and useless are all conjectures as to the future. The coming century must bring great changes--equal, possibly, to those that have occurred since 1792. At that time our territory did not extend beyond the Mississippi River, our population was hardly four million, our national revenues were less than four million dollars annually, manufacturing industries had not gained a footing, for agricultural products there was no market, the trade in slaves from Africa was guaranteed in the Constitution, the thirteen States had not outgrown the disintegrating influence of the Confederation, the Post-Office Department was not organized, and the National Government was not respected for its power, justice or beneficence, of which the mass of people knew nothing.