Then we come to Robert the Magnificent, who wedded the sister of Canute. He attempted to invade England and failed. He was father of William. He would not fail, and the enterprise with which the father had been unsuccessful remained as an inheritance for the son. His father died on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1035. He was left ruler over some of the most lawless and turbulent barons in Europe. He was scarcely eight years old, and his record of thirty years while reorganizing Normandy and in bringing the nobles to order is a proof of his real greatness. He fought his way, he gained his dukedom, he broke up nests of treason, he destroyed castles, he upset conspiracies, he showed what one young man could do, when he had definite aims, wise plans, fixed principles, and industry and resolution, courage and firmness, and the ability to keep what he had gained. William was a hard man, austere, exacting, persevering. His heavy hand made the English themselves comprehend their own national unity through a unity of suffering. If they had not perished for a moment, they would not have survived for ages. My time is spent or we would leap from the eleventh to the thirteenth century, and emphasize our last points, _resistance to the Pope, and organization of the House of Commons_. But these you can think of at your leisure. FOOTNOTE: [F] Held in the Amphitheater, at Chautauqua, August 4, 1882. REASONS FOR THE STUDY OF GREEK. By PROF. H. LUMMIS. By those best qualified to judge, the thorough study of Greek is conceded to be the very highest kind of mental discipline and culture. George P. Marsh, in his lectures on the English language, thus speaks: “Let me repeat, that so far from dissuading from the study of Greek, as a branch of general education, I do but echo the universal opinion of all persons competent to pronounce on the subject, in expressing my own conviction that the language and literature of ancient Greece constitute the most efficient instrument of mental training ever enjoyed by man: and that a familiarity with that wonderful speech, its poetry, its philosophy, its eloquence, and the history it embalms, is incomparably _the most valuable of intellectual possessions_.” Such testimony from so eminent a scholar, and from so critical a mind is decisive in regard to the value of the study of Greek as a discipline, as well as in respect to the richness of the literature which it contains.