"It is too probable that no plan that we propose will be adopted. Perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained. If, to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and just can repair. The event is in the hand of God." Noble words, fit to be written in letters of gold over the portal of every legislature of the world, and it was in this spirit that the convention finally convened on May 25th, 1787. When the delegates from nine States had assembled, Washington was unanimously elected the presiding officer of the convention. It began by adopting rules of order, and the most significant of these was the provision for secrecy. No copy should be taken of any entry on the Journal, or even permission given to inspect it, without leave of the convention, and "nothing spoken in the house be printed or otherwise published or communicated without leave." The yeas and nays should not be recorded. The rule of secrecy was enlarged by an unwritten understanding that, even when the convention had adjourned, no disclosure should be made of its proceedings during the life of its members. When after nearly four months, the convention adjourned, the secret had been kept, and no one knew even the concrete result of its deliberations until the Constitution itself, and nothing else, was offered to the approval of the people. The high-way, upon which the State House fronted, was covered with earth, to deaden the noise of traffic, and sentries were posted at every means of ingress and egress, to prevent any intrusion upon the privacy of the convention. The members were not photographed daily for the pictorial Press, nor did any cinema register their entrance into the simple colonial hall where they were to meet. Notwithstanding this limitation--for no present-day conference or assembly can proceed with its labours until its members are photographed for the curiosity of the public--these simple-minded gentlemen--less intent upon their appearance than their task--were to accomplish a work of enduring importance. The extreme care which was taken to preserve this secrecy inviolate, and its purpose, were indicated in an incident handed down by tradition. One of the members dropped a copy of a proposition then before the convention for consideration, and it was found by another of the delegates and handed to General Washington. At the conclusion of the session, Washington arose and sternly reprimanded the member for his carelessness by saying: "I must entreat gentlemen to be more careful, lest our transactions get into the newspapers and disturb the public repose by premature speculations. I know not whose paper it is, but there it is [_throwing it down on the table_]. Let him who owns it, take it."