liberty of thought, of the individual, to the care of the welfare of the common people, and for the progress and advancement in modern science of learning of the people of the Philippine Islands. The literary aspect of Rizal’s works should commend itself to each of you as an inspiration to do your own duty. I think no man can read Rizal’s novels without feeling his powerful impulse of sympathy for and understanding of the people of this country. We can be moved not only by his profound reading of human nature, but we can also be inspired to emulate, if we may, the high level of talent for which his name will ever be famous in the history of literature. Here in the Philippines I would, if I could, arouse you to more earnest devotion to a literary career. You have natural advantages second to no country in the world. Your history is replete with incidents and romance and your present latter-day development is a true inspiration to the youth of the world in all countries. Last winter when I returned to New York for my first vacation home I remember one particularly dark and gloomy day when the people on the streets, which are nothing more than cañons between high buildings of stone and glass, were jostling one another without a spark of human sympathy or appreciation, conscious competitors in the struggle for the survival of the fittest; and my mind went back to those scenes of every-day life in the Philippines, to this land of lofty mountains, of clear water running to the sea, the sunsets across Mariveles Mountain, the dawn over Mount Arayat, the blue haze upon the rice-fields in the evening—all the familiar scenes and sounds of a life animate by the sun and made happy by the richness of nature. As I remembered the deep and tender lights of the coconut groves and the busy industry of your daily life, I said to myself, “There is a country which could inspire any man to literary efforts with all its wealth of romance.” When I recall the history of the Philippine Islands, the coming of the Christians with the sword and flaming cross, the coming of the Mohammedans, with the crescent and the crooked creese and their cry in many a hard-fought battle, the enterprise of the Spaniard in spiritual teachings as well as in material investments, the shouts of Legaspi’s sailors across Manila Bay, the guns of Dewey so many generations later, the efforts of our country to establish here our principles of democracy, it seems to me that any young man or woman born upon this soil and inspired by these ideas has an opportunity to take a place in the very foremost ranks of literature and history and show to the world not only what has been done here in education but what the world may expect of the Filipino people when they take their rank as an independent member of the brotherhood of nations.