great Dominion of 1919. And during all those years, while rulers have come and gone, while statesmen have flourished and faded, while empires have sprung up or been destroyed, Sir Wilfrid remained a central figure on the international stage. * * * * * Wilfrid Laurier was born at St. Lin, Quebec, on November 20th., 1841, of a family that had settled in Lower Canada, six generations before. His forebears came from Anjou, France, and originally bore the family name of Cottineau. A marriage contract, drawn up in Montreal in 1666, bears the signature of the first representative of the family in Canada—Francois Cottineau, dit Champlauriet, or translated literally, Francis Cottineau, said, or called, Champlauriet. Apparently this latter appellation was subsequently adopted by the family, and after Louis XIV had, by royal decree, proclaimed the land to be French territory. They first established themselves in the forest of Ile Jesus, an island immediately north of the Island of Montreal, and at the mouth of the Ottawa River, and a little later removed to the Parish of Lechenaie, on the north bank of the same river. Charles Laurier, the grandfather of Sir Wilfrid was a man of remarkable energy and ability, and in the face of many obstacles taught himself surveying, and was master of mathematics in his scholastic district. At the beginning of the 19th. century he established his son, Carolus Laurier, on farm land which he had cleared in the bush near the little village of St. Lin, which nestles in the foothills of the Laurentide range, north of Montreal. Carolus Laurier, like his father, was a surveyor by profession, and a farmer by habit, and followed both occupations to his best advantage. He wanted some of the strong personality of his father, but was of a generous and friendly nature, and of an inventive turn of mind, as is evidenced by the fact that he was the first person in the colony to devise what then passed for a threshing machine, and which replaced the flail, which he had inherited from his father. Born in a quiet backwoods settlement, Carolus Laurier was a radical in the strongest sense of the word, and perhaps it was the father who laid the foundations of the son’s political faith. In one respect Carolus Laurier is particularly deserving of praise. He was sufficiently acute to realize that his son had unusual aptitudes, and to make the best of those mental endowments provided him with a good classical education. In those days this was no light undertaking for a man of the station and means of Carolus Laurier. The father realized, too, that it would be of inestimable advantage to this son to have a thorough knowledge of the English language, and of English customs, and to this end he carefully directed the son’s education.