I wrote this once as a definition of Americanism: "It seems to me to be, first of all, a consciousness of unfettered individuality coupled with a determination to make the most of self." In short, a compound of independence and energy. To you, in the earnest temper of mind which your letter of inquiry suggests, this definition may seem a generality of not much practical value; declarative of essential truth, yet only vaguely helpful to the individual. Yet I offer it as a starting-point of doctrine, for to my thinking the people of the United States who have impressed themselves most notably on the world have possessed these two traits, independence and energy, in marked degree. And to you, whatever your condition in life, if you consider, it must be apparent that manly self-respect and enterprising force are essential to character and good citizenship, and that the prominence accorded to these qualities by those who have analyzed the component parts of our nationality is a distinction which should be perpetuated and reinforced by succeeding generations. Nevertheless, the counsel seems to approximate a glittering generality for the reason that the opportunities for acting upon it no longer sprout on every bush as in the forties, fifties, sixties, and seventies of the present century when we were a budding nation and much of our territory was still virgin soil. I write "seems to approximate" advisedly, for the opportunities are just as plenty, merely less obvious. Yet here again I must make this qualification--one which recalls doubtless the favorite aphorism employed to meet the plea that the legal profession is overcrowded--that there is always an abundance of room on the top benches. Indisputably the day has passed when the ambitious and enterprising American youth could have fruit from the tree of material fortune almost by stretching out his hand. Now he has to climb far, and the process is likely to be slow and discouraging. The conditions peculiar to a sparse population in a new country rich in resources have almost ceased to exist, and, though a young nation still, we are face to face with the problems which concern a seething civilization where almost every calling seems full. Now and again some lucky seeker for fortune still finds it in a brief twelve-month, but for the mass of American young men the opportunities for speedy, dazzling prosperity have ceased to exist. Those who win the prizes of life among us nowadays owe their success, in all but sporadic cases, to unusual talents, tireless zeal and unremitting labor, almost as in England, and France, and Germany. So also, with the passing of the period when enterprise and ambition were whetted by the promise of sudden and vast rewards, have disappeared many of the traits, both external and psychological, which were characteristic of our early nationality. The buffalo is nearly extinct, and with him is vanishing much of the bluff, graceless assertiveness of demeanor which was