( '■ ^ D R 2 '-'• ^-^^^ 
 
 Class _PS_£9^Q 
 Book.jS_aS____ 
 
 CoBTight)^^ 
 
 JO 
 
 CjDtPntlGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
SPRAQUC'S 
 ^•* SPEECHES 
 
 n COLLECTION OF AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES, 
 AND MISCELLANEOUS ADDRESSES ^^^ 
 
 WILLIAM C?5PRAGUE 
 
 %!ffit^ or THE 
 
 5J:-Jf2^ DETROIT B7\R 
 
 ^|§^i^ PRESIDENT OP 
 THE SPRAGUE 
 CORRESPONDENCE 
 SCHOOLS OP LAW 
 AND 
 dOURNALISn. 
 
 COLLECTOR 
 
 PUBLISHING 
 
 COMP?CNY, 
 
 DETROIT, 
 
 MICH. 
 
 1595. 
 
 1st CO^ 
 
 3 31898 
 
 ^^s^er of Covf 
 
 TWO COPIES RECtiVED^ 
 
^S^ioo 
 
 1^^ 
 
 copyrighted by the 
 
 Collector Publishing Company, 
 
 1898. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Some of my friends have in unguarded moments told 
 me that they liked my speeches. Encouraged by these 
 expressions, and actuated by a commercial spirit, I venture 
 to put in book form some of the children of my brain that, 
 having once been born and received a name and some little 
 attention from admiring friends, have served no further 
 purpose than to fill dusty pigeonholes in my desk and 
 lumber up nooks and corners of my home and my office, 
 which should be reserved for better things. 
 
 Some little experience in marketing books among young 
 men has shown me that there is a demand for every-day 
 speeches, on every-day topics, made by every-day men. 
 Speeches by Pitt, Curran, Webster, Calhoun, Phillips, 
 Beecher, and other men of like caliber, will continue 
 to be a staple in the market for many generations to come ; 
 but the speeches of these giants of the rostrum and forum 
 are a little "too much" for the average young man who 
 wants some suggestions and inspiration in the direction of 
 speech-making. Speeches by Hezekiah Smithers, of Po- 
 dunk, Ky., will sell well along side of the great speeches of 
 Daniel Webster, because Smithers has a way of saying 
 things that can be to a certain degree imitated with profit 
 by the common, average man. It is in the belief, somewhat 
 presumptuous perhaps on my part, that I am something of 
 a Smithers myself, that I oflfer this book to the public. 
 
 These speeches have not had the stamp of approval put 
 upon them by professors of rhetoric, or schools of oratory ; 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PACKS. 
 
 Preface, ------ iii— iv 
 
 The Funeral of Charles Sumner, - - i- 5 
 
 The Old World visits the New, - - 6-12 
 
 Farewell, - - - - - 13-17 
 
 The Disease and its Remedy, - - . 18- 31 
 
 The Unknown Land, . _ _ 22- 43 
 
 The Music of the Future, _ . . 44. 46 
 
 What Can a Young Man Do? - - 47- 53 
 The Sunday School Teacher and His Problems, 54- 65 
 
 Masonry, and the Year Before Us, - 66- 76 
 
 Beta Bachelors, - - - -77-86 
 
 Does the Church Shrink from Contact with 
 
 Practical Life, - - - -87-95 
 
 Newspaper Etiquette, . - . 96-103 
 
 The Dead Debtor, . - _ . 104-105 
 
 Around Our Chapter Fire, - - 106-108 
 
 Four Years and More have Gone, - - 109-ixi 
 
 Our Friends, — the Enemy, - - - 112-119 
 
 The Law and the Schoolmaster, - - 120-146 
 
 The Signs of the Times, - - - 147-151 
 
 The Steps that Led Up to Magna Charta, - 152-168 
 
 The Minnesota Association, - - 169-173 
 
 Address to Newsboys, - - - . 174-182 
 
 Presentation Speech, - - 183-188 
 
THE FUNERAL OF CHARLES SUMNER. 
 
 It was a stormy day, — if I remember rightly — the day on 
 which Charles Sumner died. The day opens as other days 
 at the national capitol, but closes as few others do ; a day of 
 bustling activity succeeds ; the streets, as on other days, are 
 filled with restless, hurrying throngs ; and at noon the two 
 flags wave over the wings of the capitol, proclaiming that 
 laws are making and unmaking. Thus far and until the 
 middle of the afternoon this day is like other days at Wash- 
 ington. 
 
 The hour of three draws nigh, the sun goes down behind 
 the great white dome of the capitol with its lengthening 
 shadows, and a solemn silence falls like a mantle over the 
 city, — a silence broken by the first startling intelligence from 
 the shrill voice of the newsboy as he speeds from one to 
 another with the blackly leaded sheet. The wheels of gov- 
 ernment stop ; the massive doors of the departments close ; 
 men descend the steps of the capitol ; death has entered the 
 gates of the city ; and the proud capital trembles to its very 
 center. The cannon's peel announces the setting of the 
 sun and darkness settles over a mourning city, — a darkness 
 that with lightning speed spreads from ocean to ocean. 
 Such is the day on which Sumner dies. To-day, Sumner 
 dies ; to-morrow wears its weary length away, and, the next, 
 the nation pays tribute to its illustrious dead. Rain in fit- 
 ful torrents splashes upon the house-tops and the paved 
 streets, but the great national heart is beating with a 
 
2 SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 greater tumult within. Despite the rain, men, women and 
 children press eagerly toward the capitol, for within its 
 walls can be seen for the last time the remains of him they 
 mourn. Upon a bier in the center of the rotunda, amid 
 wreaths and crosses of flowers, he lies, while on either side 
 stand with bowed heads the members of the two branches 
 of Congress. Moments of great solemnity follow, then the 
 great bronze doors are thrown open to the waiting throngs. 
 One by one these men, his comrades for years, step forward 
 to look for the last time into the face of their fallen brother. 
 This farewell taken, the signal is given and the great doors 
 of the rotunda are thrown open to the multitudes that file 
 in from the west, move slowly by the bier and out to the 
 east. Heartfelt sorrow, not mere idle curiosity, is plainly 
 written upon the faces of this vast army of people. I be- 
 lieve no man, not excepting Garfield, and I had almost said 
 Lincoln himself, possessed the love of the common masses 
 of this country as did Charles Sumner. Heartfelt sorrow, 
 not mere awe felt in the presence of death, causes this pro- 
 found silence, broken only by suppressed weeping. I see 
 strong men brush away the tears as they gaze for the last 
 time upon this silent face ; and, most impressive of all, aged 
 negroes cling to the coffin and refuse to be led away, while 
 others, sobbing aloud, lift their children in their arms that 
 they may see the great and good man who did so much for 
 their race. Slowly, very slowly, the sad procession passes 
 through. Hours go and come and still the crowd surges 
 on, until the doors are closed and thousands return disap- 
 pointed to their homes. Two by two the Senators resume 
 
SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 3 
 
 their places in the Senate, accompanied by the representa- 
 tives, who enter and take seats assigned them, A moment 
 elapses and there enter the Chief Justice of the United 
 States and his associates, in their solemn robes of ofQce, 
 followed in perfect silence by the President of the United 
 States and his cabinet, who, walking slowly down the 
 broad center aisle, take seats assigned them at the very 
 front. Following comes the old world, represented by the 
 diplomatic corps, — representatives from every civilized na- 
 tion upon the face of the globe, in their robes of office, to do 
 honor to the dead statesman who for so many years was 
 chairman of the committee on foreign relations, and had 
 moulded the policy of our government towards their own. 
 Then come the chief officers of the army, navy and marine 
 corps ; and then the Massachusetts delegation in Congress. 
 A moment of awful stillness follows, and Charles Sumner 
 is once more in the Senate, borne on the shoulders of eight 
 stalwart representatives of the race he has befriended, and 
 escorted by the pallbearers appointed by the Senate. Ten- 
 derly they place the coffin on the spot assigned it, and 
 the vast concourse in the galleries and on the floor, 
 as silent as death itself, listen with bated breath while 
 the chaplain of the house, the Rev. Mr. Butler, leads 
 the nation here assembled in solemn prayer. His read- 
 ing is from ist Cor. 15:20-28. His prayer begins: Great 
 God, we bow reverently in Thy presence. Thou hast 
 done it; teach us wisdom as we walk among the graves. 
 Bless the millions who gather tenderly around this coffin 
 to-day. Bless our own great land, and give unto us rec- 
 ords of truth and righteousness. We ask this in the name 
 
4 SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 and for the sake of Him who has taught us to say, — (and 
 closing with the Lord's prayer). Following the prayer, 
 the Rev. Byron Sunderland reads the 39th Psalm, verses 5 
 to 13, and Psalm 90, and offers one of the most solemn and 
 impressive petitions that, perhaps, the lips of man have ever 
 uttered, and closing with the beautiful expression, "O God, 
 the God of our Fathers, bless this nation and all the na- 
 tions; bless us and all men together and, when we come 
 to die, open Thou for us the portals of eternity and crown 
 every soul with a pure and blessed and a glorious immor- 
 tality." The prayer ended, the President pro tem. Senator 
 Carpenter of Wisconsin, rises in his place and says, "The 
 service to be performed by the committee of arrangements 
 having been terminated, the Senate of the United States 
 entrusts the mortal remains of Charles Sumner to its ser- 
 geant-at-arms and a committee appointed by it, charged 
 with the melancholy duty of conveying them to his home, 
 there to be committed, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust 
 to dust, in the soil of Massachusetts. Peace to his ashes." 
 What a scene! Here were assembled the governors of 
 this mighty republic; here were assembled in their black 
 robes the members of that august tribunal which wields 
 jurisdiction over forty-six States and Territories ; here, too, 
 came the chief magistrate of the nation, with his cabinet of 
 counselors, and lastly, side by side sat the embassadors of 
 the great powers of the earth, in their robes of office. All 
 these were here, hushed and sad, while lying low in his 
 coffin, all insensible to the imposing pageant, and about to 
 
SPRA G UE'S SPEE CHES. 5 
 
 be committed earth to earth, dust to dust, was one of the 
 greatest of them all, who for twenty-two years had been a 
 living power, influencing in, perhaps, a larger degree than 
 any other the opinions of men. A nation, indeed, at the 
 funeral of its greatest statesman ! Where a brush that can 
 adequately paint that scene ! Where a pen to write what 
 the brush can ne'er portray ! 
 
 Such is the scene I gazed upon, with scarcely the com- 
 prehension to grasp it ; and yet I could but feel that in the 
 great sorrow and loss of all I had some little part; for I 
 had come to look upon Charles Sumner as my ideal. 
 
 The voice of Massachusetts is heard claiming her dead 
 Senator, and he is borne from the Senate chamber. Down 
 the avenue through a driving rain, slowly moves the funeral 
 cortege, while the chimes of the city toll the funeral march. 
 
 Charles Sumner's wisdom had given him a high place 
 in the national regard. His purity of character and motive 
 had gained him the respect and esteem of his associates ; 
 and his mighty efforts for humanity had given him world- 
 wide fame and had endeared him to all mankind. No won- 
 der that our country mourned his death ! No wonder that 
 all Europe bowed her head in reverential grief ! 
 
THE OLD WORLD VISITS THE NEW. 
 
 DESCRIPTION OF THE VISIT OF A JAPANESE EMBASSY 
 TO THE NATIONAL HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 
 
 Of the many interesting events that come crowding upon 
 my memory, as I think of my boyhood days spent in Wash- 
 ington, few come to me with more vividness, perhaps, than 
 that of the visit of the Japanese Embassy to the House of 
 Representatives in March, 1872. On the 28th day of Feb- 
 ruary, 1872, there appeared in Washington one of the most 
 distinguished embassys that has ever come to this country. 
 It came from a nation theretofore the most exclusive and 
 most averse to diplomatic relations of any on the face of the 
 globe, — Japan. Indeed, it was, without exception, the most 
 important embassy that had ever left that country, — and, 
 indeed, any eastern country ; not only important on account 
 of its mission and object, but because of the dignity and 
 high rank of the members composing it. Its object was to 
 obtain information as to political, industrial and social af- 
 fairs in this country, and to gain instruction as to the re- 
 newal of existing treaties. The embassy was received by 
 both houses of Congress in a manner befitting the character 
 of the embassy itself and the importance of its mission. 
 The embassadors were twenty-one in number, accompanied 
 by a large retinue, the half of them being ladies of 
 high birth. The chief embassador was Iwakura, so titled 
 as being the person always in attendance upon the Emperor. 
 With him came three vice-embassadors, and other minor 
 
 6 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 7 
 
 officials — the chief officers of the eight different depart- 
 ments of the Japanese nation. It was indeed as if our 
 cabinet and Supreme Court were in a body to pay an ex- 
 tended visit to London to obtain information with which 
 to fashion our policy and run our government. The ap- 
 pearance of this distinguished embassy upon the floor of 
 the house, for the purpose of paying its respects to the 
 American Congress, was indeed a remarkable event. It 
 was the oldest nation acknowledging its debt to the young- 
 est. My extreme youth made it impossible for me to real- 
 ize the full meaning of this event, but enough was said and 
 done to stamp the scene indelibly upon my memory. 
 
 The day's session has begun, and the floor of Congress 
 presents the usual busy scene, with nothing to indicate the 
 approach of an unusual event. The first indication is music 
 from a band. If there is any remarkable political event 
 that has occurred in this country without the assistance of 
 a brass band, I have yet to hear of it ; and if there was ever 
 an American small boy that could hear the music of a brass 
 band above the din of Congress and through the thick 
 walls of the capitol itself, I was that boy. In a few moments 
 there appears in the main aisle of the house a messenger, 
 who, being recognized by Speaker Blaine, announces the 
 presence in waiting of the Senate of the United States. Mr. 
 Blaine at once rises and raps with his gavel ; the members 
 rise and stand in their places, while the Senators, two by 
 two, led by their presiding officer, file in and take seats or 
 stand about in the aisles, as convenience dictates. Mr. 
 Blaine invites to his side the President of the Senate, who, 
 
8 SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 at that time, I think, was Senator David Davis. A rap 
 of the speaker's gavel and the assembly is again seated. A 
 few moments of waiting and another messenger appears, 
 this time to announce the approach of the Prime Minister 
 of Japan and his suite. Again the gavel descends and the 
 American Congress stands in expectant interest. 
 
 The galleries are by this time full to overflowing, and the 
 cloak rooms and ante-rooms of the house are emptied of 
 their accustomed loungers. There is a deep silence, as 
 always in a great assembly at the climax of interest; then 
 appears at the main door, opposite the Speaker's desk, the 
 Chief Embassador, leaning upon the arm of our Secretary 
 of State and followed by the other embassadors, each sup- 
 ported by a distinguished American. The Japanese, 
 dressed in their Oriental robes of of^ce, their chief carry- 
 ing in his hand a roll of parchment, present the appearance 
 of highly cultured and intellectual Orientals. Passing 
 down the broad central aisle and reaching the arena in front 
 of Mr. Blaine, the procession parts and forms a circle fac- 
 ing him. Nathaniel P. Banks, on behalf of the committee 
 appointed to receive the embassy, addressing the Speaker, 
 says : 
 
 "Mr. Speaker, the committee of the House assigned to 
 that duty, in accordance with its- instructions, has now the 
 honor to present to you and the House his Excellency, 
 Mr. Iwakura, their Excellencies Mr. Kido, Mr. Okubo, and 
 Mr. Ito, the Embassador-in-chief and the Assistant Embas- 
 sadors of the Government of Japan ; the honorable secre- 
 taries of the embassy, and the honorable commissioners of 
 
SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 9 
 
 the principal departments of the Government of Japan, with 
 their attaches." 
 
 Mr. Blaine rises, and addressing the visitors, says : 
 
 "Your Excellencies, on behalf of the House of Represen- 
 tatives I welcome your imperial embassy to this hall. The 
 reception which is thus extended to you so unanimously 
 and so cordially by the members of this body is significant 
 of the interest which our whole people feel in the rapidly 
 developing relations between the Japanese empire and the 
 American Republic. 
 
 "The course of migration for the human race has for 
 many centuries been steadily westward, a course always 
 marked by conquest, and too often by rapine. Reaching 
 the boundary of our continent, we encounter a returning 
 tide from your country, setting eastward, seeking, not the 
 trophies of war, but the more shining victories of peace; 
 and these two currents of population appropriately meet 
 and mingle on the shores of the great Pacific sea. 
 
 "It will be my pleasure to present to your Excellencies, 
 personally, the representatives of the people, and for them, 
 as well as for myself, to assure you that during your stay 
 at our capital you will at all times be welcome to the privi- 
 leges and the courtesies of this floor." 
 
 At no time during the many months that Mr. Blaine 
 was before my eyes did my boyish admiration of him be- 
 come greater than here and now, as he stands tall and com- 
 manding, — an ideal American in form, figure, and speech, 
 delivering a most fitting and graceful address of welcome 
 on behalf of the American people and of Congress. The 
 
lo SFEAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 climax of interest comes with the response from the Chief 
 Embassador. To me it seems very funny, and I am not 
 sure but a good many old and dignified Senators laugh in 
 their sleeves as this high and mighty ofificial, with voice 
 pitched to a high G, sings off his response. Yet with all its 
 funny sound there is something in it, and in the circum- 
 stances under which it is spoken, that makes it very impres- 
 sive. Would that I could repeat it to you as I heard it 
 then, and can almost hear it now in imagination. I cannot 
 even imitate the pitch of tone, and much less the wave-like 
 movement of sound ; not a syllable of it do I remember, but 
 the impression of it will never pass away. It was indeed a 
 voice out of the past, an unknown, mysterious, weird sound. 
 Immediately upon its close, with a great salam reaching 
 nearly to the floor, the entire delegation makes its bow, re- 
 sponded to by Mr. Blaine with a courteous and dignified 
 dropping of the head. Then the interpreter takes up the 
 speech of the Oriental prince and translates it ; and a more 
 dainty and delightful piece of declamation I have never 
 heard. I have gone to a good deal of trouble to find it, and 
 I will repeat it for you : "Mr. Speaker and honorable mem- 
 bers of the House of Representatives of the United States 
 of America : — On behalf of the Embassadors of Japan, our 
 sovereign, and the people whom we represent, we tender 
 to you our sincere thanks and warmest friendship. We fully 
 appreciate the distinguished honor which places us face to 
 face in the presence of that mighty Power which rules the 
 great American Republic. Governments are strong when 
 built upon the hearts of an enlightened people. We come 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. ii 
 
 for enlightenment, and we gladly find it here. Journeying 
 eastward from the empire of sunrise toward the sunrising, 
 we daily behold a new sunrise beyond the one we before en- 
 joyed ; new knowledge rises daily before us ; and when the 
 completed journey shall have passed in review an encircled 
 globe, we shall gather together our treasures of knowledge, 
 remembering that, however we have advanced toward the 
 sources of light, each onward move has revealed to us a 
 further step beyond. The government of Japan already ap- 
 preciates the value of an enlightened policy toward itself 
 and all nations. And our united assurances on our return 
 will confirm to the people at large the friendliness of feel- 
 ing so frequently expressed heretofore, and now so gen- 
 erously exhibited to this embassy. In the future an ex- 
 tended commerce will unite our national interests in a thou- 
 sand forms as drops of water will commingle, flowing from 
 our several rivers to that common ocean that divides our 
 countries. Let us express the hope that our national friend- 
 ship may be as difficult to sunder or estrange, as to divide 
 the once blended drops comprising our common Pacific 
 ocean." 
 
 How is that for an example of terseness and beauty of 
 expression? I fear an American, on such an occasion, 
 would have said more; no, not said more, but tried to say 
 more, and would have succeeded in saying less. Speech- 
 making ended, the Speaker of the House and President of 
 the Senate descend from their places and are presented to 
 the embassy; then Senators and Representatives, and at 
 least one small boy, by virtue of ample paternal coat-tails, 
 
^'m 
 
 12 SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 each in turn shakes the hand in good American style of 
 the almond-eyed visitors. This ceremony over, the embassy 
 retires as it came, followed by the Senate, and the House 
 resumes its routine labor as if there has not just occurred 
 one of the most significant events of the century. General 
 Garfield, who was then a Congressman, proposed, and Con- 
 gress granted, an appropriation of $50,000 to defray the 
 expense of entertaining this distinguished embassy. I 
 think no one will charge this expenditure to the wasteful- 
 ness of governmental legislation. 
 
FAREWELL, 
 
 CLOSING TOAST AT THE i8g7 BANQUET OF THE 
 
 COMMERCIAL LA W LEAGUE OF AMERICA 
 
 A T PUT-IN-BA V, OHIO, July 30, iSgj. 
 
 Mr. Toastmaster and friends, I am not going to inflict 
 upon you an after-dinner speech. My main purpose is to 
 read^ou a poem, — not one of my own composition, how- 
 ever, but one that has been sent in to us by a member of the 
 League who was unable to be present at this meeting, and 
 who, desiring to contribute something to the success of this 
 affair, has sent a few verses which you will agree with me 
 are very appropriate. 
 
 But before reading these lines to you, allow me to say a 
 few words which are in the nature of words of parting. This 
 is the third convention of the Commercial Law League of 
 America, and I am more than ever of the opinion that the 
 third time is the charm. I rejoice in the fact that in point 
 of the character of the men who have attended this conven- 
 tion, in the point of the wit and beauty of the ladies who 
 have attended this convention, in the point of the harmony 
 and good feeling, and in the point of the dignity of its pro- 
 ceedings, this convention is head and shoulders above any- 
 thing that the Commercial Law League of America has yet 
 achieved. This League was born under a lucky star. Many 
 of us have felt in months gone by that we were approaching 
 the rocks, but our lucky star has guided us through all the 
 narrow straits until it seems to me to-night that we have 
 
 13 
 
14 SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 reached clear sailing. That star never has shown so bril- 
 liantly as it shines to-night, directly over the head of our 
 loyal and talented friend from New York whom we have 
 elected to the Presidency, Mr. John B. Green, An astron- 
 omer was once asked to talk to a body of astronomers upon 
 the beauties of astronomy. He took them out under the blue 
 vault of heaven and pointing to the skies, exclaimed, "Look 
 at the stars." My friends, during the coming year, when 
 asked to tell about the beauties of the Commercial Law 
 League of America, point to your newly elected officers, 
 Green, Miller, Florance and Way, and simply say, look at 
 the stars. I rejoice that out of the chaos of the first year or 
 two of our organization we have been able to form a body of 
 working members, — a well organized association. We have 
 been standing, in times past, before the commercial world 
 very much like Oedipus before the Sphinx. It asks us the 
 question, what are we here for, and if we cannot answer it 
 at once and intelligibly, it is ready to devour us. I am 
 thankful that we have reached the point in our career as an 
 association that we may go out to the world and tell them 
 what we are here for, and that we are able to give a reason 
 for the faith that is in us. I do not know how Brother 
 Bartlett [an ex-president of the League, as was the speaker] 
 has felt, but during my administration I felt very much like 
 a man who tried to stand a corpse on its feet and said, when 
 failing to do so, that he thought it was lacking something 
 inside. I felt very much in my administration as though 
 there was something lacking in the organization on the in- 
 side, and that most of the year I was trying to hold up some- 
 thing that was very much like "a stifif." I am glad to know, 
 
SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 15 
 
 however, that the organization has reached a point where 
 we can truly say that there is something on the inside. In 
 the school books of the children and on the charts of every 
 navigator is the great rock of Gibraltar. The summer's sun 
 sends down upon it its melting rays, the winter's blasts beat 
 about its peaks, the dews of heaven rest upon its brow, the 
 waves wash against its face, the winds howl about its dreary 
 wastes, and yet all of these vicissitudes of nature only 
 serve to bring out in bolder relief the grand and awful 
 strength of the rock of Gibraltar. Allow me to express the 
 hope that the vicissitudes and changes, the conditions, fa- 
 vorable and unfavorable, that must meet us as we go on 
 with this organization, may only serve to bring out in 
 clearer view the rugged strength of this organization, the 
 rugged purposes with which it was formed. Down on the 
 Ohio there is a great stretch of water that runs due east and 
 west; at one point there arises a precipitous mountain of 
 rock. An old river captain who had sailed along that way 
 for some fifty years was dying, and on his death bed he 
 asked that he might be given a niche in that wall wherein 
 he might be buried, with his face towards the waters that he 
 loved so much. My friends, I love this League so much 
 that I want to express the hope that when my last journey 
 has been made that I may be able to look back from the 
 eternity to which I must sometime come and feel that I have 
 been instrumental in forming this organization into some- 
 thing that shall live and be of benefit to man. Now I will 
 read to you the verses that have been sent us by George H. 
 Humphreys, a member of the League from Rochester, 
 New York : 
 
1 6 SFI^AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 Stretch out thine arms, glad Put-in-Bay, 
 To greet the friends who come to-day 
 
 From far and near; 
 
 Fill full of cheer 
 Their sojourn here, as three times blest 
 They quaff the wine of perfect rest. 
 
 Give to the breeze old Glory's stars, 
 And three cheers for the gallant tars 
 
 Who on this spot 
 
 So bravely fought, 
 And nailed the banner of the right 
 Above the grasp of England's might. 
 
 Unite in closer ties the band 
 
 Who come at honor's high command 
 
 To seek anew 
 
 The just and true. 
 With single eye to this alone. 
 How best to give to each his own. 
 
 No care here mingles with the breeze 
 That bears from far o'er Summer seas 
 
 From toil release, 
 
 For sadness peace, 
 And on its swift but silent wings 
 New health and strength and vigor brings. 
 
 May pleasant words like song of b'rds 
 Refresh each heart, until is stirred 
 
 To steadier fire 
 
 The high desire 
 To lighten every passing care 
 And lift life's burden everywhere. 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 17 
 
 May joy be with them all the week, 
 And with them as they soon shall seek 
 
 Their homes once more; 
 
 Their gathering o'er, 
 May grateful memory often say: 
 How rich our feast in Put-in-Bay. 
 
 And through the year as evermore 
 
 Its waves' sweet cadence thrills the shore, 
 
 So may God's voice 
 
 Bid us rejoice; 
 And so be ours, whate'er befall, 
 The highest, "greatest thing of all." 
 
 If there are any persons in this company who may rightly 
 act the part of hosts, it is the members of the League who 
 reside in Detroit, Toledo, Cleveland, Sandusky and Buffalo. 
 I want, on behalf of those gentlemen, to say to you what 
 the old Indian said to Marquette, who was exploring the 
 region of the northern lakes. "I thank thee, black count, 
 and thee, Frenchman, for taking so much pains to come and 
 visit us. Never has the earth been so beautiful, nor the sun 
 so bright as to-day. Never has our river been so calm or 
 sc free from rocks, which your canoes have removed as they 
 passed. Never has our tobacco had so fine a flavor, nor has 
 our corn appeared so beautiful as you behold it to-day. 
 Thou knowest the Great Spirit who has made it all. Thou 
 speakest to him and hearest his word. Ask him to give us 
 all life and health, and come and dwell with us again." 
 
THE DISEASE AND ITS REMEDY. 
 
 ADDRESS BEFORE THE DETROIT CREDIT MEN'S ASSO- 
 CIATION AT THEIR SECOND ANNUAL BANQUET 
 A T DETROIT, MICH., JANUARY 20, iSg8. 
 
 Mr. President and Gentlemen — I appreciate very thor- 
 oughly the compliment you have bestowed upon me in in- 
 viting me to share with his Honor, the Mayor of the city, 
 the privilege of addressing you at this your annual meeting. 
 I can conceive of no reason why I should have been singled 
 out from among the many members of this association, 
 some of v/hom are particularly pleasing talkers, and placed 
 alongside of our distinguished friend, the Mayor, whose 
 penchant for making felicitous speeches is a matter of com- 
 mon knowledge, unless you were so impressed by the ex- 
 aggerated reports that your representatives at the Kansas 
 City convention brought you of my abilities as an orator, 
 that you concluded that you would try to get a sample of it 
 and put these reports to the proof. If this is the case, I am 
 sorry that you must be disillusioned ; it was not any elo- 
 quence of mine that "bagged the game" at Kansas City; it 
 was rather the personal qualities of your delegation, their 
 ability to stand where others fell, their good mixing qual- 
 ities, their personal good looks and popularity — all these, in 
 addition to the popular notion that Detroit is the hand- 
 somest and most appropriate convention city in the world, 
 brought the National Association of Credit Men in con- 
 vention assembled, to choose this home of ours as their next 
 
 abiding place. 
 
 18 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 19 
 
 I am not handicapped to-night by a subject, so what I 
 shall say will be rather in the nature of a few remarks, than 
 of a set speech. However, in order that you may carry 
 away with you at least something as a recollection of what 
 I say, I will confine myself to a more or less sensible dis- 
 cussion of a subject that I shall name, "The Disease and Its 
 Remedy." Without any further preliminaries I shall pro- 
 ceed to diagnose the disease. It is my custom, at least once 
 a year, to visit the little town in Ohio where I passed my 
 boyhood. On one of my visits I was impressed with the 
 change that had come about among the business men of the 
 town within the past twenty years. I spoke to one of the 
 oldest citizens of the place, of my surprise at the rapidity 
 with which so startling a transformation had come about. 
 Together, then, we went over the names of the merchants 
 who had been, twenty years ago, the business men of the 
 town, and asked ourselves the question. Where are they? I 
 was never so impressed with the truth of the remark, that 
 so far as money and property go to make success, failure 
 is the rule among men, and success the lonesome exception. 
 The leading dry goods merchant when I was a boy, a man 
 estimated then to be worth $75,000 to $100,000, was driving 
 a dray; another, at that time a successful dry goods mer- 
 chant, was a bent and feeble old man doing menial service 
 in the dry goods store of the son of the man who was driv- 
 ing the dray. Another, who once conducted the leading 
 general store of the county, the director of a bank, the 
 financial pillar of the leading church, is now tending alone 
 a little store patronized only by a few old patrons. Another, 
 
20 SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 the leading hardware merchant, is now, in his old age, beat- 
 ing out tin pails and cups in a little tin shop over the store 
 where he used to sell more in a day than he now sells in six 
 months. Up and down both sides of the main street we 
 went in our search for the merchants of twenty years ago, 
 and of all who had died in the meantime the great majority 
 of them had died insolvent, while of all who still lived less 
 than five per cent of them were still in business for them- 
 selves and solvent. This, too, in a conservative country 
 town, surrounded by a fine agricultural district and apart 
 from the follies and extravagance of city life. 
 
 Will you tell me why it is ; will you blame it to the condi- 
 tions of trade and the times? This will not do, for I could 
 show you that within the last twenty years that country has 
 enjoyed, for a large part of the time, a fair degree of pros- 
 perity. I would show you that in that community the court 
 records are almost absolutely clear of insolvency proceed- 
 ings, assignments for benefit of creditors, etc., and yet 
 throughout the entire period merchants have come and 
 gone, succeeding for a time, but in almost every instance 
 coming down to an old age of disappointment and want. 
 I do not need to go so far away to make a diagnosis of the 
 disease. I came to Detroit thirteen years ago. The Wood- 
 ward avenue of thirteen years ago is far from the Wood- 
 ward avenue of to-day; not so much in the number and 
 character of its business men as in their personnel. I do 
 not care, in this presence, to name over the merchants then 
 prominent in business on Woodward avenue and now no 
 longer a factor in business circles, and only remembered 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 21 
 
 for the debts they made. You can recall them. The aver- 
 age business life of Woodward avenue merchants, could it 
 be definitely known, would no doubt astonish us. Failures 
 on Woodward avenue are not to be charged so much to 
 so-called hard times, for they have been most frequent and 
 most disastrous in times that have generally been con- 
 sidered as prosperous. Once in a while it will do us good 
 to dip into history a little for facts, for men are much the 
 same now as they ever have been, and the same causes are 
 operating to bring about effects to-day that operated fifty 
 years ago. 
 
 In 1840 Gen. Dearborn, who had been collector at the 
 port of Boston for nearly twenty years, stated that after an 
 extensive acquaintance with business men and having long 
 been an attentive observer of the course of events in the 
 mercantile community, he was satisfied that among one 
 hundred merchants and traders not more than three ever 
 acquire independence. In the same year a great anti- 
 quarian in Boston said, that, forty years before, he had 
 taken a memorandum of every person doing business on 
 Long Wharf, and that after the lapse of forty years, five 
 only of the one hundred remained ; they had all in that time 
 failed, or died destitute of property. The Massachusetts 
 Bank, of Boston, gave out a statement that of one thousand 
 accounts which they had opened, on starting business, only 
 six remained after forty years ; that of the remainder, nearly 
 all who had opened accounts had either failed, or died 
 destitute of property. The president of the bank, in making 
 this statement, said: "Bankruptcy is almost as certain as 
 
22 SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 death. There seems to be little escape from it, and he is 
 a fortunate man who fails young." A contributor to the 
 Merchants' Magazine, that some years ago was published 
 in New York, said that up to that time but one eminent 
 merchant had ever continued in active business in the city 
 of New York to the close of a long life without undergoing 
 bankruptcy or a suspension of payments. From records 
 kept in Boston during periods of twenty to forty years, it 
 is asserted that of every hundred persons who commenced 
 business in Boston ninety-five, at least, died poor. Glance 
 for a moment at the statistics of bankruptcy under the uni- 
 form bankruptcy law of 1841, which was in force but thir- 
 teen months. The number of applicants for relief under 
 that law were 33,739; the number of creditors returned, 
 1,049,603 ; the amount of debts stated, $440,934,615 ; the 
 valuation of the property surrendered, $43,697,307. On this 
 showing ten cents should have been paid on every dollar 
 due. It may interest you to know that on the winding up 
 of the estates the following dividends were paid: In the 
 southern district of New York an average of a cent on the 
 dollar, in the northern district of New York thirteen and 
 two-thirds cents, the largest in any jurisdiction; in Con- 
 necticut, a half a cent on a dollar ; in Mississippi, six cents 
 on every $1,000; in Maine, a half a cent on every $100; in 
 Michigan and Iowa, one-fourth of a cent on every $100 ; and 
 so on, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Alabama paying nothing. 
 Here is the enormous sum of $400,000,000 and over, lost 
 by 1,049,000 merchants, who were supposed to be engaged 
 in proper and legitimate business. Some twenty years ago 
 
SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 23 
 
 my father purchased the bankrupt stock, including books of 
 account, of one of the leading stores of southeastern Ohio, 
 which in its day had done a flourishing business. Among 
 the books of account was one that particularly interested me 
 as a boy. In it was given a long list of names of persons 
 who owed accounts to the store, which accounts had been 
 presumably charged to profit and loss, and opposite each 
 name was some remark in pencil as to what had become of 
 the debtor. These remarks read something as follows : 
 "busted," "gone to Neb.," "dead," "killed by the cars, left 
 nothing," "busted," and among other evidences of disgust 
 and despair on the part of the bookkeeper were quite a job 
 lot of names after which was the expressive statement, 
 "gone to hell." There was once published in Cincinnati a 
 journal called Cist's Cincinnati Advertiser, the publisher, 
 Mr. Cist, being the statistician of the city. He at one time 
 prepared a list of the principal active business men who 
 were in trade twenty years before in Cincinnati. Opposite 
 each name he briefly related what had become of the person. 
 I have now before me the list. It reads as follows : "No. i, 
 broke ; resumed business ; has since left Cincinnati. No. 2, 
 broke ; resides in Indiana. No. 3, broke ; now engaged in 
 collecting accounts. No. 4, died. No. 5, broke; now cap- 
 tain of a steamboat. No. 6, left merchandising to put up 
 pork, which business he also quit in time to save his bacon; 
 independent in circumstances. No. 7, dead. No. 8, broke; 
 resides in St. Louis. No. 9, firm ; one of the partners dead, 
 the other out of business ; both insolvent. No. 10, part- 
 ners ; both dead. No. 1 1, partners ; broke ; one now a book- 
 keeper, the other dead. No. 12, became embarrassed and 
 
24 SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 swallowed poison. No. 13, a firm; broke. No. 14, a firm; 
 broke ; one of the partners died a common sot, the other left 
 the city. No. 15, in the penitentiary. No. 16, now a clerk; 
 left Cincinnati after becoming intemperate. No. 17, broke; 
 drowned himself in the Ohio. No. 18, broke and removed 
 to Toledo. No. 20, out of business ; broke three times ;" and 
 so on. The list comprehends some four hundred business 
 men and only five of them were still in business after twenty 
 years. 
 
 Such is mercantile success ! I think, after this mournful 
 recital, I ought to pause long enough for us all to sing the 
 chorus of that old song, "Let us all be unhappy together." 
 What is the matter with a mercantile career, anyhow? It is 
 a common and popular thing nowadays to decry the shyster 
 lawyer; what about the shyster merchant? For every un- 
 successful lawyer I can produce a dozen unsuccessful mer- 
 chants ; for every weak and sinful member of the bar I will 
 produce his match from among the merchants. The fact 
 is, the world is full of incompetents. The disease is not one 
 that affects one class or several classes to the exclusion of 
 others. It is a general disease that requires patient and 
 long-continued treatment, and I doubt very much whether 
 in our day the patient is growing any better. I am not one 
 of those who believe that business men are any less honest 
 to-day than they were fifty years ago. I do believe, how- 
 ever, that the standard of morality in trade is far from what 
 it ought to be, and that until it improves materially we may 
 expect to see little improvement in the condition of the 
 patient. I believe that the credit men of the country have it 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 25 
 
 in their power to produce remarkable results in the direction 
 of more honest and more capable business men and 
 methods. A large proportion of the men who fail in busi- 
 ness fail from injudicious buying ; another large proportion 
 fail from extravagance in store management or in home 
 life, or in both ; another proportion, not small, fail because 
 of injurious habits ; another proportion fail from venturing 
 into lines of business in which they are unskilled ; while 
 others fail from speculation. Conservative credit men and 
 capable mercantile reporting agencies have it in their power 
 to work such a change in business conditions and business 
 character as cannot be accomplished by all the State Legis- 
 latures in Christendom. We cannot legislate men into hon- 
 esty; we cannot legislate them into economy; we cannot 
 legislate them into a wise use of their money ; we can, how- 
 ever, as individuals, stand between them and the things they 
 would do, and prevent them. The law may say, that a man 
 shall not enter my house at night and carry away my 
 valuables without my consent. But the fellow may not 
 know the law, or he may think it unjust, or may be viciously 
 indifferent to it. All the law and all the statute books in the 
 world will not be so effective in preventing his stealing from 
 me as am I myself, standing in the door with a revolver in 
 my hand, barring his approach. Make all the laws you 
 please on the subjects of assignments, insolvencies, chattel 
 mortgages, attachments, etc., etc., load your statute books 
 until they groan with the weight and the severity of your 
 collection laws, and you don't begin to cure the disease so 
 long as there are credit men willing to supply the merchant, 
 
26 SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 whatever his character and regardless of the insolvency of 
 his estate. I believe thoroughly in credit — I have to use it 
 myself — but I do not believe in it when it keeps afloat a raft 
 of irresponsible merchants who, if their debts were paid, 
 would not have cash enough to buy their next meal, whose 
 stores are the "bargain stores" of the city, demoralizing 
 trade, and driving respectable, honorable and responsible 
 merchants into distress, and finally failing and throwing 
 upon the markets trainloads of merchandise at less than 
 manufacturers' cost. 
 
 How many of our merchants, were they closed out to- 
 day, could pay one hundred cents on the dollar? Are there 
 not many of them, indeed, carrying large stocks and doing 
 a big business, who, at a safe estimate, are insolvent and 
 irresponsible? I venture to say there are merchants in this 
 city to-day who are getting goods on credit from jobbers 
 who expect these same merchants to fail, but who are tak- 
 ing the chances that they will get the money before failure 
 comes, or who hope, possibly, in the event of failure, they 
 will be protected. Not many months ago I went out for a 
 stroll after night with my wife (very proper, you will say !), 
 and passed the house of a merchant who had the day before 
 committed suicide. The hour was ten o'clock. Sitting 
 upon the curbstone in front of the house and standing under 
 the shelter of the trees were some twenty or thirty persons, 
 all of them lawyers and credit men ; all seeking at this un- 
 canny hour, in the presence of the very corpse itself, to 
 interview the widow and learn "where they were at," I 
 stopped and talked with one of these gentlemen, with whom 
 
SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 27 
 
 I was acquainted. To one of them, who seemed to be a 
 chief mourner, and whose goods and money to the extent 
 of some $20,000 were slipping from his grasp, I said, 'T am 
 glad of it. It treats your house right. You had every 
 means of knowing what was coming. I do not know what 
 the mercantile agency report was, but if it was not such as 
 to warn you, the agency ought to be drummed out of town, 
 for every citizen with his eyes and ears open has known for 
 some time that some day, and that, soon, a tremendous 
 failure was coming. You deliberately closed your eyes and 
 your ears and let your property go." I think I have scolded 
 about this before in the columns of my paper, and I can't 
 help repeating what I there said, that we, as credit men, 
 have much to blame ourselves for, and that in applying 
 remedies to others we should be sure that we don't need 
 them ourselves. 
 
 What is to bring about a better class of merchants, fewer 
 failures, more successful business, a sounder condition of 
 trade? Laws can't do it; overproduction and overpushing 
 of goods upon the market can't do it; a cheapening of 
 commodities can't do it; politics can't do it; a system of 
 bankruptcy can't do it ; I know of nothing that can produce 
 the result so speedily, so completely, as agitation ; public 
 sentiment; education. What brought the abolition of 
 slavery? Agitation. When Wendell Phillips struck the 
 keynote of anti-slavery sentiment he was hooted and howled 
 from house to house in Boston, the very center of freedom ; 
 but agitation, constant, heroic, personal, finally swept the 
 whole north and at last the union itself for freedom for the 
 
28 SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 black race. Coming down from the sublime to the ridicu- 
 lous, I give you a marked evidence of the result of agitation 
 when I refer to the crusade against high hats in the theaters. 
 Agitation alone has done it. Legislatures have sought to 
 legislate the nuisance out of existence, but public opinion 
 has done the work — ^public opinion, expressed in the public 
 press, on the rostrum, in the street, and in the home. Agi- 
 tation in favor of reform in credit methods is the main pur- 
 pose of the National Association of Credit Men. This 
 splendid organization, springing suddenly into existence 
 at the call of a few earnest, far-seeing men, has already been 
 an influence for good, and it is bound to be a tremendous 
 force in making better men and bringing about better 
 methods. Credit men singly can do much here and there 
 in preventing disasters to character and business ; combined, 
 they can revolutionize the business world. They ought to 
 represent, do represent, I believe, the strength and con- 
 servatism of the business world. Direct that strength and 
 conservatism to right ends and future generations will look 
 back upon no more important factor in the business life of 
 the latter part of this century than the banding together of 
 these men for protection against imposition, injustice and 
 fraud and for bringing about mutual improvement and re- 
 forms in business methods. The watchword of this organi- 
 zation should be "Agitate." The printing press should be 
 employed night and day in spreading before the people 
 words of counsel and warning. The daily and weekly news- 
 papers and the trade journals should be used as the good 
 right arm of the movement. For whatever we may say of it 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 29 
 
 on its less potent and less gracious side, the press is the 
 guardian of public morals, the defender of justice, the great 
 and mighty engine of civilization. Right well, I am glad 
 to say, is this association meeting the ends of its organiza- 
 tion by agitation. 
 
 I venture to say that no trade organization has ever made 
 upon the minds of business men a more profound impres- 
 sion of its usefulness than the Association of Credit Men. 
 Not only is the movement endowed with the enthusiastic 
 support of the leading houses of the United States ; not only 
 is it blessed with the vigorous and influential assistance of 
 the powerful and gifted trade press of the country, but the 
 realization seems to have been had that the peculiar work 
 that is being performed is singularly adapted to this associa- 
 tion alone. 
 
 With uniform statement blanks, as a source of education, 
 and a custom insuring closer relations between debtor and 
 creditor, and a protection and advantage to both; with a 
 uniform trade inquiry form as an incentive to more certain 
 trade confidence ; with a business literature department hav- 
 ing a policy and system insuring the dissemination of the 
 soundest advice ; with the extension of a powerful influence 
 upon our commercial agencies guaranteeing a more perfect 
 and reliable service; with the agitation, looking to correc- 
 tion, of such abuses as the use of local checks by out-of- 
 town merchants, fake advertising, and excessive and un- 
 reasonable dating and discounts, and with the successful 
 operation of the department devoted to the investigation 
 and prosecution of fraudulent failures, there can be no 
 
30 SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 question as to the importance of our association, the prac- 
 ticability of its undertakings, and the grandeur of its in- 
 fluence. Men of profound experience are contributing to 
 its literature and hundreds and thousands of newspapers 
 and periodicals are placing these words before the eyes of 
 their readers ; thus gently, gradually, and yet surely, is the 
 process of education going on. No credit man should look 
 upon this movement in a selfish spirit. He should rather 
 be thankful that it is within his power to lend some aid, 
 however small, to the furtherance of this great project, 
 whose purpose and whose result we can no more now calcu- 
 late than could we judge of the mighty influence of Wm. E. 
 Gladstone, from the knowledge of the mere fact that on De- 
 cember 29th, 1807, there was born to the wife of one John 
 Gladstone, a son. I personally am proud that Detroit was 
 present and took an active part in the organization of the 
 National Association of Credit Men. I am proud that our 
 city represents an integral part in this great movement. I 
 am proud for my city, that among all the credit men of all 
 the cities that I have met personally and in conventions, 
 none impress me as more intelligent and more capable than 
 those of my home city. I am further proud that in the sum- 
 mer of 1898 we shall be permitted to extend our hands in 
 greeting to one of the most distinguished bodies of business 
 men which it has ever been the proud privilege of this 
 splendid city to entertain. Let us show to this represent- 
 ative body of business men that what our local association 
 lacks in numbers we make up in the height and the depth, 
 the length and the breadth, of our hospitality, and in the 
 
SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 31 
 
 meantime and always, let us endeavor to assist as best we 
 can in extending the power, influence, and usefulness of this 
 great brotherhood to the end that the utmost of the bless- 
 ings which it has the power to confer may be vouchsafed to 
 all its members, and, through them, to the world at large. 
 
THE UNKNOWN LAND. 
 
 The unknown land of this day and age of the world must, 
 you say, be a very unimportant and uninteresting study. 
 The world's ships have girdled the globe and checkered its 
 seas with the paths of commerce ; the world's missionaries 
 and explorers have penetrated its forests and sandy wastes ; 
 men of iron nerve have carried the chain of discovery far 
 out into the frozen night of the polar seas and brought back 
 word that beyond is but the uninhabitable stretches of ice 
 and snow; intrepid spirits have braved the hostile climates 
 and races of the African continent and returned to lay the 
 riches of the tropics at the feet of an admiring world. You 
 admit that here and there upon the earth's surface are dark 
 spots unexplored, but you say they are so insignificant in 
 comparison with what faced the world of the fifteenth and 
 earlier centuries that for us, practically speaking, there is 
 no unknown land ; that our geographies are now complete ; 
 that here and there we may have to change the line of a 
 river or mark here a lake, or there erect a mountain peak, 
 but that never again shall we add new pages for lands or 
 continents now unknown. To a large extent, perhaps, this 
 is true; I say perhaps, for it will not do for man ever 
 again to be dogmatic on points of geography any the more 
 than on points of science, philosophy, and reHgion, in the 
 face of the revelations of the past fifty years. The most we 
 can say, yes, the most that the best and wisest of men can 
 say, is that so far as we can now see, things are thus and so. 
 
 32 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 33 
 
 Never in the history of man has there been so much break- 
 ing of idols as in this day in which we Hve, We ridicule 
 old-time notions of the earth, her motions, her functions, 
 her relations to the stars, and to the universe in general, old- 
 time theories of light and sound and heat and motion and 
 life, old-time rules and practices and fashions of individual, 
 family and social life, old-time theories of gods and devils, 
 and demons and mysteries, yes, even old-time beliefs and 
 hopes and faiths, — and yet upon this same great rock of 
 discovery and modern research are our own pet theories, 
 our own well-trenched philosophies, our own ever sacred 
 dogmas, and heaven-born creeds, being shattered before our 
 very eyes. So that, standing in the midst of the whirl of 
 these last years of the nineteenth century, one may well 
 turn the pages of his book of knowledge with a hurried 
 hand, for ere he is well through with them their wisdom has 
 vanished away. "Whether there be prophesies they shall 
 fail, whether there be tongues they shall cease, whether there 
 be knowledge it shall vanish away." To quote from one 
 who has recently asked and answered so well the question, 
 what is the summum bonum, the greatest thing in the 
 world: "The wisdom of the ancients ! where is it? It is 
 wholly gone. A schoolboy to-day knows more than Sir Isaac 
 Newton knew ; his knowledge has vanished away. You put 
 yesterday's newspaper into the fire, its knowledge has van- 
 ished away; you buy the old editions of the great encyclo- 
 pedias for a few pence ; their knowledge has vanished away ; 
 see how the coach has been superseded by the use of 
 steam; see how electricity has superseded that, and swept 
 
34 SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 an hundred almost new inventions into oblivion. One of 
 the greatest living authorities, Sir Wm. Thompson, said 
 the other day, 'The steam engine is passing away.' Whether 
 there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. At every work 
 shop you will see in the back yard a heap of old iron, a few 
 wheels, a few levers, a few cranks, broken and eaten with 
 rust. Twenty years ago that was the pride of the city, men 
 flocked in from the country to see the great invention. Now 
 it is superseded, its day is done. And all the boasted 
 science and philosophy of this day will soon be o'er. But 
 yesterday, in the University of Edinburgh, the greatest 
 figure in the faculty was Sir James Simpson, the discoverer 
 of chloroform. The other day his successor and nephew. 
 Prof. Simpson, was asked by the librarian of the University 
 to go to the library and pick out the books on his subject 
 that were no longer needed, and his reply to the librarian 
 was this : 'Take every text-book that is more than ten years 
 old, and put it down in the cellar.' Sir James Simpson was a 
 great authority only a few years ago; men came from all 
 parts of the earth to consult him, and almost the whole 
 teaching of that time is consigned by the science of to-day 
 to oblivion." 
 
 In every branch of science the same is true ; and never 
 was this more true than in this year of our Lord one thou- 
 sand eight hundred and ninety. Every pulse-beat to-night 
 is a leap forward into an unknown land; every inspiration 
 fills our lungs with a clearer and purer air blowing fresh 
 from mountain and plain and river of which our maps con- 
 tain not even a suggestion. 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 35 
 
 Are we moving fast? Yes, terribly fast; men and things 
 go down in the mad rush, their hands still outstretched to 
 the future, their bodies bruised and beaten under the iron 
 heel of irresistible progress. You have read of the wild 
 rush of humanity into the far West in the days of the gold 
 excitement and a similar exhibition on a smaller scale into 
 the newly opened territory of a western State. Great cara- 
 vans stealing across the prairies and gathering on the con- 
 fines of the promised beyond — faces expectant — courage 
 fired — hearts aglow — bodies nerved; the word comes and 
 then the mad shout of greeting, the gallop of steeds, the 
 rocking to and fro of the great vans, the crack of the rifle, 
 the shout of victory, mingled with the cry of defeat, — a 
 terrible race for the prize. 
 
 I remember well a picture I once saw when but a lad. Its 
 impress has remained upon my mind amidst the changes of 
 years. Beneath it is written, "Westward the star of 
 empire takes its way." In the foreground is the summit of 
 a rocky range ; a group of emigrants ; an old man, his staff 
 dropped from his hand and his tottering form scarcely 
 lifted above the earth ; a mother clasping her babe to her 
 breast, her eyes uplifted in a prayer for courage ; and above 
 them a young man, his face aglow with enthusiasm and the 
 blood of youth, peering eagerly forward into the beautiful 
 pastures of the new country that lies stretched beyond as 
 far as the eye can reach, and beckoning to his disheartened 
 companions in eager joy at the discovery of the long- 
 delayed end of their journey ; while back over the path they 
 have traversed stretches the long line of white-covered vans 
 toiling up the mountain. 
 
36 SFE AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 A picture of frequent occurrence in the border States and 
 a truthful representation of the journey into the unknown 
 land of which we men and women of this civilization are a 
 part. 
 
 Some of us are away out in the front of this great move- 
 ment, some of us are content to be toiling in well-beaten 
 tracks, some of us are scarcely to be seen in this picture, 
 our outfit so mean, our speed so slow, our ambition and 
 zeal so insignificant; away back on the horizon, our forms 
 are scarcely distinguishable in the dimness of its coloring. 
 
 It is for but few to be the explorers in the unknown land 
 — for the great world of men it is left to follow after. Once 
 in a while one of us "makes believe" to venture a little be- 
 yond the crowd, and coming back we say, "there is nothing 
 new under the sun." There may be a few modifications and 
 improvements of the old, a few combinations of existing ele- 
 ments not yet made, but after all we have about solved the 
 problem and reached the end ; we build our golden calves 
 and fall down to worship them until some Moses descend- 
 ing from the mountain and thundering in our ears the di- 
 vine command, "Thou shalt have no other Gods before Me," 
 hurls our idols from their pedestals and leads us one day's 
 march farther from the Egypt of our bondage. 
 
 This great body of humanity is moving in well-defined 
 columns of attack, each marshalled by leaders and well dis- 
 ciplined ; there are the scouts, — the men who are to-day way 
 out on the front of the movement — quick eyed, clear headed, 
 well equipped, brave, strong, fired with zeal, experienced, 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 37 
 
 inured to hardships, accustomed to difficulties, fertile in re- 
 sources : Painters, musicians, architects, machinists, elec- 
 tricians, astronomers, navigators, philosophers, statesmen, 
 physicians, teachers, preachers. Following at a long dis- 
 tance comes the great body of humanity, but ere they reach 
 the field they find the ashes of many a camp fire and the 
 land no longer unknown. Then there is the great rear- 
 guard, here and there organized into bodies, but more gen- 
 erally scattered ; occasionally mutinous and yet following 
 at greater or less interval the main body, — the camp fol- 
 lowers ; men who live upon the past, who create and see 
 nothing new, who assume an icy indifiference to progress, 
 who sneer at every new revelation, whose motto is, "not 
 seen, not believed," whose pet phrase is that blear-eyed 
 blasphemy, "there is nothing new under the sun," as if we 
 had finally got a tapeline about God's universe and had its 
 exact measurement. No more false and dangerous idea 
 ever took refuge in words. You meet these dyspeptic 
 philosophers at every turn, unable to comprehend the mag- 
 nificent movements of mind which have characterized their 
 times. They are found in politics, and know nothing of 
 state-craft beyond the successful drawing of a salary, look- 
 ing after their fences, or the selfish interests of a back-woods 
 constituency ; they are found in the pulpit and know noth- 
 ing of the true religion beyond their vain desire to crowd 
 the eternal God and His Universe into a two-by-four inter- 
 pretation of His written word ; they are found in the pro- 
 fessions of law and medicine ; you meet them in the schools 
 of art and in the walks of business — this great rear-guard. 
 
38 SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 Rather would I be in the ranks of the ignorant dweller upon 
 the banks of the Indus, seeing and knowing nothing of this 
 great warfare, than that, face to face with the splendid rev- 
 elations of the possibilities of the human mind and the won- 
 drous resources of the unknown land, I should stand like a 
 dog baying at the moon. 
 
 A few years since we were startled by scientific men tell- 
 ing us that there was indisputable evidence of the existence 
 of man in the quaternary period of the earth's history. Men 
 went to their Bibles and read the first chapter of Genesis 
 and shook their heads, and now they tell us that there is 
 evidence of man in the tertiary and that he antedates the 
 glacial period. If this be true, and we have little ground to 
 dispute it, either from the standpoint of probabilities or the 
 standpoint of the Bible, the history of the race is indefinitely 
 prolonged. According to some authorities some twenty to 
 one hundred millions of years have elapsed since man be- 
 came a separate and distinct creation. With this view of the 
 length of time in which man has been on the earth, how 
 infinitely slow the progress in the centuries of the past! 
 A thousand years ago a not over-wise prophet might readily 
 have argued the exact condition of the race a century later. 
 But how rapid in these times are the wheels of progress 
 turning ! What means this rapid acceleration of movement? 
 Is the force that is drawing us on some unknown energy 
 which, like the force of gravity, acting inversely as the 
 square of the distance, is rapidly drawing us as a race to the 
 perihelion of our existence? Where is the prophet who, 
 fifty years ago, could give even the roughest outline of the 
 
SFEAGUE'S SPEECHES. 39 
 
 present? How much that is now the common experience 
 and blessing of the race was known ten years ago? The av- 
 erage of human wisdom among the civilized people of the 
 globe to-day is above the point reached by the bright in- 
 tellects of an hundred years ago, and fifty years hence that 
 man who compasses by his learning the full measure of the 
 wisdom of our wisest men may be, — yes, doubtless will be 
 counted an ignorant man. 
 
 It is impossible for any one of us with equanimity, no 
 matter how far advanced in intelligence, how unerring in 
 sight, or intrepid in spirit, to go far into the unknown land. 
 Venture out but a little way and our minds are confused, 
 our senses reel with the mass of strange and startling facts 
 and phenomena that surround us. 
 
 We are told that Columbus, standing upon the prow of 
 his vessel, surrounded by a mutinous crew, saw before him 
 the land of promise in the occasional flitting of strange birds 
 across the sky, strange odors borne upon the breeze and 
 strange objects that floated past. And so even those of us 
 who give little, if any, thought to the progress of events can 
 dimly see the outlines of a new land in the mass of new and 
 varying phenomena that daily pass before our eyes. 
 
 The progress of science during the past few years is 
 likened in my mind to a midnight ride upon a train among 
 the mountains, — a sense of comfort and security within, an 
 enjoyment of the novelty of the situation, and yet the pres- 
 ence of an awful dread as one peers out into the darkness 
 and into the mysterious depths over which he is borne. Is 
 the track all right ahead? Is the engineer trustworthy? 
 
40 SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 Are we not going too fast? Why this stop — this sudden 
 starting? See that swaying lantern ahead! Is it a signal 
 of danger? Who has not had these sensations? 
 
 So this strange ride which science is taking us to-day; 
 awful in some of its aspects, over dizzy heights which we 
 dare not contemplate. A Morse ahead with his lantern ; we 
 catch his signal and are off; we pass him as he stands by 
 the roadside ; and with a length of wire to-day eighty times 
 the length of the equator, the telegraph is no longer won- 
 derful. Another lantern shines out ahead in the darkness; 
 Edison is signaling, and we are off up the mountains as 
 passive and as impotent to guide or direct in this unknown 
 land as a sleeping babe. This lantern passed, and the human 
 voice is carried by an invisible energy for thousands of 
 miles, and the telephone is no longer wonderful. Another 
 signal left behind in the night, and the microphone is a 
 thing of yesterday. Another, and electricity is stored and 
 measured. Another, and the phonograph has ceased to be 
 a wonder. Another, and, by an unnamed instrument, we 
 shall see one another face to face although separated in per- 
 son by miles of river and mountain and plain. 
 
 What is this subtle thing we name "energy"? We speak 
 of it as the one established fact of the universe, but do we 
 know anything more of it than did Sir Isaac Newton, who 
 admitted as to gravity that he could not conceive how one 
 body could act on another without some physical connec- 
 tion between them. Tait in his Properties of Matter sums 
 up the latest results in almost the identical words of New- 
 ton : "In fact, the cause of gravitation remains undiscov- 
 ered." Whence came it? You cannot make something out 
 
SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 41 
 
 of nothing. You cannot create energy although you can 
 transform it. Science demands something even back of this. 
 There must be a still deeper sub-stratum than gravity, and 
 ■heat, and light, and electricity, to account for solar heat 
 being kept up for the time required by geology; for the 
 energy which acts from atom to atom ; for the varying in- 
 clinations of the axes of rotation of the different bodies of 
 the solar system; for the motion of the so-called runaway 
 stars. Who is there to explain the force that lies back of the 
 phenomena of animal magnetism, of hypnotism, of cata- 
 lepsy, of somnambulism, of hallucinations, of dreams? 
 And what can we say of love and hate, of joy and sorrow, 
 if under given circumstances, as has been demonstrated, 
 they can be transformed into one another by the aid of the 
 magnet? Did the man who wrote the Shakespearean plays 
 speak better than he knew when he said, "We are such 
 things as dreams are made of"? Do you say this leads to 
 materialism, if conscience and all the phenomena of mind 
 and soul is traced to the subtle workings of a physical 
 energy? If by materialism you mean the denial of a wise 
 and beneficent great first cause in whom all the phenomena 
 of the physical and so-called spiritual universe has its be- 
 ginning and must of necessity have its end ; if you mean by 
 materialism the religion of the agnostic to whom faith is 
 but a mockery, I answer, no ; I believe that man was made 
 in the image of his Maker in a higher and purer sense than 
 as commonly thought, in that, although born of the very 
 elements of the grosser world about him, he has outstripped 
 in the race all other forms of created beings and will find 
 
42 SFRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 his true mission in an absolute unity in knowledge and 
 power and experience and conditions with the God that 
 created him. 
 
 Look through the giant telescopes of to-day and amid the 
 solemn and awful mysteries of the universe, you will ex- 
 claim : "Oh the depths of God ! how unsearchable are His 
 judgments, ana how inscrutable are His ways." 
 
 Stand among the accumulated volumes of sand and 
 gravel and coal and rock and read the story of the unmeas- 
 ured ages that stretch out before you ; go into the field of 
 modern philosophy, see evolution, like a key to the uni- 
 verse, unlocking its mysteries to our wondering gaze. We 
 stagger at its suggestions ; we turn away from its conclu- 
 sions ; we grasp our creeds and our philosophies and re- 
 ligions and press them before our eyes in fear that we may 
 see something of the unsearchable riches of God; we ask 
 ourselves, trembling at the question. What may not evolu- 
 tion do? 
 
 It has proven the continuity of law, the conservation 
 of forces, the unity of matter ; it has found a thousand miss- 
 ing links and proven genus and species but diverging lines 
 of one primal organism. And man? May he not be an 
 exception? Yes, he may. But in this unknown land we 
 will not say he is. I do not give up one particle of my 
 faith in God and my belief in His word, but I may have to 
 admit that in man's interpretation of God's written revela- 
 tion, man may be mistaken just as in man's interpretation 
 of nature, which is God's unwritten revelation, man has 
 been stumbling along like a blind man and a fool since the 
 
SFRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 43 
 
 world began. With the learned bishop of the Anglican 
 church, I can sooner believe that God, in the beginning, set 
 his impress upon the universe once for all and sent it whirl- 
 ing into space to perform its mission than that from time to 
 time he has interposed to change its course or alter its plans 
 or create new forces or elements or beings. Infinitely more 
 wonderful and more in accord with an all-wise Creator, the 
 view into the unknown land of science and philosophy 
 which reduces the great mass of varying phenomena to one 
 mighty energy working by fixed laws throughout the uni- 
 verse, holding in its grasp the countless worlds of space and 
 the tiniest atom of the invisible air about us ; and that as a 
 masterpiece to crown his work, out of the all-pervading 
 workings of this law through countless years, should come 
 one endowed with the image of his Maker and capable of 
 limitless improvement. And if future generations learn 
 that mind is but another name for that all-pervading energy 
 which lies as a sub-stratum beneath all the mysterious phe- 
 nomena which we know as light, heat, gravity, electricity, 
 atomic energy, and chemical affinity, and what not, may 
 they not come to look upon some of our notions of mind and 
 spirit which we have built into our systems of belief and 
 which are founded surely and safely, as we have every 
 reason to believe with our present light, upon God's writ- 
 ten revelation to man, as erroneous as the belief of our 
 fathers that the sun revolved about the earth, which error, 
 foolish as it may seem to us, they read as truth not only 
 in nature, but in the word of God itself. 
 
THE MUSIC OF THE FUTURE. 
 
 In music, what Mendelssohn and Mozart happened upon 
 by dint of genius and a sort of inspiration, as we may say, 
 we have now reduced to an accurate system, so that by a 
 reasonable amount of study and practice the gifted genius 
 of to-day may begin almost where they left off, and with 
 the splendid improvement in instruments nothing in music 
 now is impossible. The gifted performer of the future 
 may become a veritable Orpheus to move rocks and stones 
 with his melody. One thing certain, the music of the 
 future will be human. By human, I mean music of the 
 heart, not a clash of meaningless sounds appealing to a 
 semi-barbarous ear ; neither a beating of two sticks as 
 among primitive tribes ; nor yet a crash of brass and iron 
 and sheepskin of a Gilmore's band, but the delicate ex- 
 pressions of tne best emotions of the heart, appealing 
 thereto, not by dint of force, but through the avenues of 
 experience and memory and imagination, — a reproduction 
 of human hope and fear and sorrow and joy which is the 
 grandest and the best purpose of the art. Art in its per- 
 fection will be natural, and as the natural becomes more 
 and more god-like so will music. We love music only as 
 it expresses something else that we love. Artificial stand- 
 ards and ideals of art will be from time to time set up and 
 followed, but the music of the future which will accompany 
 the advanced genius of the coming man will shake off 
 
 44 
 
SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 45 
 
 these shackles of a semi-barbarous taste, and rise to its 
 true sphere, which is the simple and faithful imitation of 
 man's best thought and feeling. Why is it that the "Home, 
 Sweet Home" of a Patti is more exquisitely beautiful than 
 the grandest oratorio that was ever sung? It is because, 
 stripped of all environment of clashing cymbals and blaz- 
 ing trumpets, there is that in the very simplicity and per- 
 fect heartiness (I think of no other word to express it) 
 of the tone so clothing the sentiment, that it sets vibrating 
 within our souls the very deepest emotions. 
 
 I imagine I catch a little of the spirit of that music of 
 the future, — that human, heart music in the tones of a 
 song which floats down to me through the fourteen years 
 which have elapsed since I heard it on the Centennial 
 grounds at Philadelphia in 1876. It was the night of 
 Pennsylvania day, the greatest day of the Exposition, 
 when, packed in one great swaying mass, there stood hun- 
 dreds of thousands of men and women, the greatest com- 
 pany of people that had ever, up to that time, assembled 
 in one spot upon the American Continent. They were 
 waiting in the darkness for the beginning of the pyrotechnic 
 display which had been promised for the evening. 
 
 All eyes were directed to the northward, expectant and 
 eager, and yet no sign of a rocket or candle appeared 
 against the starry background on which we gazed. All 
 around us is darkness and silence; hut hark! Away off to 
 the west, scarcely audible, comes a low murmur like the 
 first rustle of leaves in the forest on the approach of the 
 
46 SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 storm; nearer it comes, rising and falling, higher and 
 higher, like great billows toward the land, until, surging all 
 about us, from an hundred thousand throats, not boisterous, 
 but deep and with an indescribable pathos, the grand 
 old chorus, "My Country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, 
 of thee I sing, land of the Pilgrim's pride, land where my 
 Fathers died, from every mountain side, let freedom ring." 
 Such music is beyond description. Who will say that its 
 beauty lies in the mere force of numbers? Those who can- 
 not sing, cheer; there are those who can do neither, and 
 their emotions find refuge in tears that well up from the 
 fountain of the heart and overflow its brim. Such I be- 
 lieve in kind and effect, though infinitely greater in degree, 
 will be the music which will be the common possession of 
 all men when the race stands face to face with its Creator 
 with ears attuned to hear the harmonies of the universe. 
 
WHAT CAN A YOUNG MAN DO? 
 
 EXTRACT FROM A RESPONSE TO THE ABOVE SENTI- 
 MENT AT THE ANNUAL BANQUET OF THE YOUNG 
 MEN'S CLUB OF THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL 
 CHURCH, DETROIT, MICH., MARCH ig, i8g6. 
 
 Someone has asked "What are boys good for?" and an- 
 other has answered "To make men." The story has it that 
 a philosopher in ancient times stood viewing a procession. 
 The head of the procession, composed of grey-headed 
 heroes, bore a banner inscribed with the sentiment, "We 
 have defended the State." "Ah," said the old man, "were 
 there ever such men as these? Where shall their successors 
 be found?" As he meditated, the center of the line came in 
 view. Here were men in the strength and vigor of man- 
 hood. Upon the banner that they bore was written, "We 
 are the defenders of the State." The face of the old sage 
 lit up with a glow of satisfaction as he exclaimed, "What 
 State can be in danger while her honor and integrity are up- 
 held and defended by such warriors?" Suddenly his face 
 grew sad, and in mournful tones he added, "The old men 
 have preserved their country, the young men are now its 
 champions, but what shall happen when, after a few years, 
 these men shall have passed away!" Just then the left of 
 the procession approached. There marched the boys with 
 springing step and smiling faces. They carried high their 
 
 47 
 
48 SPHAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 banner, and upon it the wise man saw these words : "We 
 will defend the State." "The gods be praised," he shouted, 
 while tears of joy streamed down his cheeks, "the perpetuity 
 of the State is assured." Upon our boys to-night the 
 world's future rests. The fellow who spoils your last sweet, 
 restful, morning nap with his merry romp, whose last gym- 
 nastic exercises have left his room and bedding looking as 
 if an Iowa cyclone had struck them, who, just for fun, has 
 teased his sister until she is in tears, who has asked you 
 more questions while you were reading the morning paper 
 than a lawyer could propound, who wants more things in 
 a day than you could purchase in a year, who furnishes his 
 mamma business in repairing pantaloons and stockings, 
 and in causing her unexpected trips to the grocery for the 
 raisins she supposed she had, but hadn't ; the fellow whose 
 good-bye kiss is sweeter to you than any nectar that Jupiter 
 ever sipped, whose noble traits as they develop give you 
 the greatest satisfaction, whose failings you so carefully 
 endeavor to help him to overcome, — that boy is to take up 
 the work of life where you left oflf, and, whether for good or 
 ill, the world of to-morrow is in his hands. 
 
 The sentiment of my toast, Mr. Toastmaster, is as broad 
 as human possibilities and as deep as human experience. 
 What can a young man do? What can he not do? What in 
 the glorious record of a marvelous human progress has he 
 not done? From the day when the youthful David slew the 
 Philistine champion and became the anointed of the Lord, 
 to this very day in which we live, young men have formed 
 
SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 49 
 
 the opening wedge of the army of progress, from time to 
 time startHng the world with their enthusiasm, fighting its 
 greatest battles, and winning its greatest triumphs. 
 
 Time and ability will permit me scarcely to enter upon the 
 answering of this question. My only hope and expectation 
 is to leave with you young men and to receive for myself to- 
 night a new inspiration for better, higher, and nobler things. 
 
 Every pulse-beat to-night is a leap forward into an un- 
 known land. Every breeze that fans our cheek blows fresh 
 from mountain, plain and river, of which our maps contain 
 not even a suggestion. We are much like the great fron- 
 tier army of men and women that lately stood upon the con- 
 fines of a newly-opened territory in a far western State ; the 
 magnificent prospect of new and undeveloped fields before 
 us, our arms and backs laden with a motley equipment, our 
 eyes expectant and eager, our muscles tense, our nerves in- 
 stantly responsive; the word comes, the crack of the rifle, 
 the enthusiastic shout, the struggle for place, the shout of 
 victory mingled with the cry of defeat ; all these make up 
 the picture of the great forward movement of men and 
 women in this latter decade of the greatest century the 
 world has ever seen. What part do you and I bear in this 
 tremendous movement? Are we in the forefront of prog- 
 ress, are we dropping behind in the race, are we falling by 
 the roadside, are we loitering in careless indifference? I 
 believe the next score of years will face more difficult prob- 
 lems and decide more serious questions than the world has 
 heretofore seen. What can a young man do? In a word, 
 he can prepare himself for this future. 
 
50 SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 Of the many things a young man can do, I desire to dwell 
 particularly upon but two or three, and I trust you will not 
 think I am sermonizing when I enumerate them. 
 
 What can a young man do? He can help his fellow-man. 
 The young men who come from homes that are so largely 
 represented before me to-night, where temperance, intelli- 
 gence, and thrift prevail, need not our most serious thought, 
 but the young men with whom we touch arms in the 
 crowded marts, who are getting their education in the 
 street and amid scenes where pinching want drives men and 
 women to deeds of desperation — these are the young men 
 who demand our sympathy and our help. Their votes will 
 weigh just as heavily as ours, and they will be able to run 
 caucuses and poll votes by means that we cannot. The suc- 
 cessful young man is always more or less of a Pharisee, and 
 thanks the Lord a great many times a day that he is not 
 like other men. Perchance he prides himself upon the fact 
 that he is a self-made man, or, he prides himself upon his 
 soundness of judgment, industry, economy, quickness of 
 business instinct, absence of vice, a kind and even disposi- 
 tion. How much is he to be commended for any of these 
 things? Where did he get his buoyancy of disposition, his 
 evenness of temper? Analyze for a moment your own life 
 and confess to yourself how much that is commendable in 
 you came from her who is and ever will be enshrined in the 
 holiest place in your heart — your mother. You did not 
 choose your ancestors. Think, for an instant, of the herit- 
 age of that other young man. His very life is the result of 
 the tendencies implanted in him at his birth. His spirit from 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 51 
 
 the beginning is bound in chains that the power of God 
 Almighty alone can strike down. What can we young men 
 do? We can join hands in sympathy and encouragement 
 with such of our fellows as do not start even with us in the 
 race. We can encourage him whose feet falter, whose cour- 
 age weakens, whose step betrays weariness of heart and des- 
 peration of purpose. 
 
 What can a young man do? Make his own environment. 
 He cannot choose his own ancestors, but he can choose his 
 books, his companions, his occupation, his amusements. 
 You would not put a diamond in a setting of filth — yet 
 many a young man is doing this to-night with a God-given 
 talent. 
 
 What can a young man do? Marry. Cast out your 
 anchor, boys — you who are drifting. Let it catch fast in 
 the solid rock of some young woman's love. There is no 
 anchorage so safe as that in the affectionate heart of a pure 
 young girl. There is no well so deep and refreshing to a 
 tired, dusty traveler in this life as the home love of wife and 
 children. God made it for you and for me. Sow your wild 
 oats if you will, but when the harvest is gathered see to it 
 that not one grain in all that harvest of chaff shall represent 
 a young girl's broken heart or ruined life. 
 
 What can a young man do? Take his place as the hon- 
 ored head of a little world of his own, with his own hearth- 
 stone, around it to gather the crowning glory of his maturer 
 years — a loving wife, and dutiful children. No picture in 
 all the world's galleries is so beautiful as that painted by 
 Burns, a poor young Scotchman at the age of twenty-seven 
 in a garret over a stable — the Cotter's Saturday Night. 
 
52 SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 What can a young man do? Do his best in whatever 
 sphere of life he enters. A student? Be the best student in 
 the school. A bookkeeper? Be an expert and be satisfied 
 with nothing but the highest achievements in that line. A 
 mechanic? Be the smartest, cleanest, quickest workman in 
 the shop — aye, in the town. A professional man? Let no 
 seeming obstacles prevent your aiming at the very highest 
 place. The world is full of mediocre talent — men who can 
 just do things and that is all — men who just earn a living 
 and that is all. If you have talent, thank God for it and use 
 it for all it is worth. If you have not talent, make up for its 
 loss by heroic work. Work is genius. It is curious to note 
 that nearly every man the world has called a genius has 
 been a tireless worker. 
 
 What can a young man do? Serve his country. Some of 
 us were but babes pressed to our mothers' trembling 
 bosoms when the bugle called to arms in i860. Some of 
 us never heard the call nor felt the patriotic thrill that went 
 from heart to heart in those terrible days. God grant we 
 never may be called upon to strike hands in a bloody war, 
 but should it come let us as young men — the sons of patriot 
 sires, cry out in the enthusiasm of a holy patriotism — Our 
 country ! May she ever be right ! but right or wrong — our 
 country ! 
 
 What can a young man do? Serve his God. Stand by 
 the faith of his fathers who built the nation for God. Revere 
 the Bible his mother loved even as he reveres her memory. 
 What can a young man do? Build character, grow, accum- 
 ulate, fight the battles of right, marry, make a home, love 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. ^.^ 
 
 his country, serve his God. What can he do? Nothing — 
 aye, worse than nothing — he can come into manhood a 
 blackening curse to himself, a disgrace to his family, a 
 festering influence in the community. What can a young 
 man do? He can drive his chariot among the stars or bur- 
 row in the dirt like the ground mole, destroying the fair 
 face of the earth in his greedy search for loathsome prey. 
 What can he do? Everything. But what if poor? Napol- 
 eon at the age of twenty-three burst the bonds of obscurity 
 and poverty and caused his superiors to cry out — Promote 
 that young man or he will promote himself. Poverty, young 
 man, has ever been the school of genius. I leave but this 
 word of inspiration with you. The world of to-morrow is 
 what you make it. To-day is the workshop of to-morrow. 
 To-morrow is the product of to-day. 
 
 Young man, to-day and to-morrow are yours. 
 
 Enter and possess. 
 
THE SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHER AND HIS 
 PROBLEMS. 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE STATE CONVENTION OF THE 
 
 MICHIGAN ST A TE SUNDA V SCHOOL ASSOCIA TION 
 
 A T DETROIT, MICH., IN ISgs- 
 
 I take it that what you as teachers want to take home with 
 you from this convention is not the memory of eloquent 
 words nor, altogether, the inspiration from great crowds 
 and from inspiring music. You have given your time and 
 your money that you may be enabled through converse with 
 other teachers who meet the same problems and experiences 
 as do you, to take home with you better ideas of how you 
 should do your work. If you can carry home a heart in- 
 spired with love and zeal and a mind stored wi^h new ideas 
 for work, you will have reason forever to congratulate your- 
 selves on your attendance at this convention. Inspiration 
 is a good thing in itself, but if I were to choose between in- 
 spiration and ideas and could not have both I would take 
 the latter. 
 
 In marking out the line of discussion I desire that it shall 
 touch upon three prominent points. 
 
 First, the preparation for the lesson ; second, the gaining 
 and the retaining of pupils ; third, the saving of the boys 
 and girls. 
 
 First, the preparation of the lesson. 
 
 54 
 
SFRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 55 
 
 When? Not in the school hour, not on the way to the 
 school, not at breakfast Sunday morning, not Saturday 
 night, not at teachers' meeting. I would suggest that the 
 study begin tiie Sunday preceding the date of the teaching, 
 and continue throughout the week. Read Sunday afternoon 
 the lesson of the following Sunday together with your refer- 
 ence books, lesson leaves, commentaries, and other helps. 
 Try to discover what points in the lesson the Great Teacher 
 would have impressed upon your class. These points may 
 differ with different classes. The question with you is, not 
 what does the lesson leaf tell you is the teaching of the 
 verses, but what, taking into consideration the character of 
 your class, is the one or more thoughts contained in the 
 verses that will do your class the most good. There may be 
 several such thoughts which, as you read and reflect, will 
 crystalize themselves as the teaching points. Write these 
 thoughts briefly in your pocket-diary or note book and live 
 with them through the week. Gather from the experience 
 ana the reading of the five intervening days your illustra- 
 tions and your argument. You will come before your class 
 so thoroughly saturated with the spirit of your lesson that 
 teaching will be a delightful rather than an irksome duty. 
 The busiest man has time for this sort of study. I consider 
 it the most profitable and the most practical method. 
 
 If you are so situated that you must do all your studying 
 at one time give some choice time to it ; don't give the mis- 
 erable dregs of some tired day ; don't choose the time when 
 the tired body demands rest for itself and for the mind; 
 don't wind up a busy week by giving the tag-ends of your 
 
56 SPRAGUKS SPEECHES. 
 
 energy to the lesson. Give to it the morning hour. See if 
 it does not sweeten the day. See if business does not go bet- 
 ter. See if the sun does not shine brighter, the birds sing 
 sweeter, Heaven smile more graciously on you and through 
 you. Don't, I beg of you, give your Sunday morning to it. 
 Some men and women study to teach in the same manner 
 in which they would load a gun. They pour in the powder, 
 follow with a wad, ram it home with a few vigorous punches, 
 set the cap, aim, and fire, — all in an incredibly short time. 
 To change the simile I should not wonder if some of us 
 teachers who complain so much are afflicted with spiritual 
 dyspepsia. We have swallowed our food so fast we can't 
 digest it, and we seek to lay the blame for our uncomfort- 
 able feeling upon the Superintendent, the Pastor, the Class, 
 when all the time what ails us is a spiritual stomach-ache 
 from irregular or hastily bolted meals. Mark Twain says, 
 in speaking of the discovery of America by Columbus, that 
 the first thing Columbus did when he landed was to go to 
 a hotel, go up to his room, light the gas and sit down and 
 think it over. I beg of you who are dissatisfied with your 
 teaching that when you go to your homes you follow the 
 example of Columbus. The trouble is, with the most of us, 
 we are not making a business of this thing as we should. 
 Do we realize that upon us devolves almost wholly the 
 training and instruction of the boys and girls, in spiritual 
 things? The parent and the State is concerned about the 
 physical and the mental equipment of the children ; but to 
 the Sunday school teacher alone is left the care of that 
 higher element of the child's nature, — the spiritual. The 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 57 
 
 paltry half hour on Sunday morning is in the great majority 
 of cases the only half hour of the week in which the child 
 receives spiritual instruction. Parents have a strange tim- 
 idity in this regard, especially as the child reaches boyhood 
 or girlhood. Almost entirely is the responsibility in this 
 regard shifted upon the Sunday school teacher. How awful, 
 then, — I use this word meaning it — how awful, then, is the 
 spectacle of the teacher sitting before his class Sunday 
 morning, hurriedly cramming enough of the lesson into 
 himself to be able to ask a few questions of his pupils and 
 not to appear altogether unprepared. 
 
 Where shall I prepare? Everywhere, I would say. Let 
 your daily life and observation throughout the week furnish 
 the illustration and inspiration for the lesson. In other 
 words, let the whole week focus as it were, upon that lesson. 
 But you say, I am not accustomed to this kind of thinking. 
 No; but what you are unaccustomed to by disuse you can 
 become accustomed to by use. Don't use the arm and you 
 will soon have no arm to use. Don't cultivate independent 
 thought and the power of independent thought will soon be 
 gone. This leads me to say of lesson-helps that in them lies 
 one of the greatest possible dangers. The devil gains ad- 
 vanced ground in a class when the teacher throws away her 
 Bible for her lesson-leaves. I maintain that they have no 
 place in the school. They certainly have no place in the 
 teacher's hand. They have a place as a tool for the teacher's 
 use in a preliminary survey of the lesson. Further than that 
 I believe them to be wickedly harmful. They destroy inde- 
 pendent thought, they tempt the teacher to delay the prepar- 
 ation of the lesson to the last moment when with definitions 
 
58 SFRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 and pronunciations and explanations galore and with illus- 
 trations ready made and questions put into his mouth, all 
 he needs to do is to do nothing and the lesson runs itself. 
 You say this is fanciful. It is not fanciful so far as it relates 
 to any school that I have ever seen. It is not fanciful. 
 Teachers are doing this more generally than we think. The 
 fact is, I repeat, we, as teachers, a good many of us, do not 
 mean business. We are but playing at teaching, and the 
 boys and the girls are growing out of the Sunday school and 
 we teachers, in the country and the city alike, are asking 
 with heavy hearts how we can keep the young men and the 
 young women in the schools? I tell you one reason is we 
 do not think enough of them or appreciate enough our 
 responsibilities to do our duty toward them as teachers. 
 Boys and girls are keen enough to know when the teacher 
 neglects his duty. They are quick to see the shoddy in what 
 he offers them. Once they determine that the teacher 
 shirks and they will shirk. Imitation is second nature with 
 a boy, and if it is something bad it is first nature. The 
 modern methods of Bible study are gradually putting the 
 old book itself on the shelf. At Grand Rapids last year I 
 took dinner with a friend and at his table sat two elderly 
 schoolmarms of the city schools, — bright, intelligent 
 women. I was amazed to hear one of them say, "the chil- 
 dren are coming to know less and less of the Bible." I sug- 
 gested that I thought she must be mistaken, and then, re- 
 membering that her field of observation was infinitely 
 wider than mine, I admitted that possibly she was right. 
 This, too, in Grand Rapids, a city of wealth and culture, a 
 
SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 59 
 
 city of rich churches, of great preachers and teachers, and 
 the children coming to know less and less of the Bible ! My 
 good old father is still living, — a Baptist deacon in a little 
 town in southeastern Ohio. He never went to college as I 
 did ; he never went to city Sunday schools, with all their 
 modern improvements, as I have ; he never was in a Sunday 
 school convention that I know of ; he never could say, as I 
 can at my age, that he had taught in Sunday school for 
 nearly twenty years ; but as compared with his knowledge of 
 the Bible and his ability to quote it, and his faith and confi- 
 dence in it, my own is not to be mentioned. The reason is he 
 had Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress and I have Trilby. He had 
 the weekly newspaper if he had any, I have two dailies ; he 
 had the Bible, and I have Sunday school papers, lesson 
 leaves, lives of Christ, commentaries, charts and pictures, till 
 in the confusion I don't know which God said and which man 
 said, and what with the new version and higher criticism I 
 am often led to wonder if God ever said anything. My con- 
 tention is that the teacher should begin his preparation of 
 the lesson at least a week in advance of its teaching ; that he 
 should draw his inspiration and illustration from life as he 
 sees it; that he should determine well in advance what 
 points in the lesson are best adapted to his class; that he 
 should discard all helps save as preliminary to real prepar- 
 ation. It is needless for me to say that adequate preparation 
 of spirit and body should accompany the preparation of 
 mind, but I can dwell no longer here. Much more might be 
 said along these lines, but I must pass to the gaining and 
 retaining pupils. 
 
6o SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 My friends, there is no secret about this. People, young 
 and old, will go where they are wanted if the place and the 
 associations are made attractive for them. There is nothing 
 in itself repulsive about the religion of Jesus Christ. It is the 
 happiest thing on this footstool. All you need to do to win 
 people to the Sunday school is to let Christ's spirit work in 
 it freely, and that spirit will not work in it if there are jeal- 
 ousies, quarrelings, bitterness, contentions, suspicion, back- 
 biting there. The personality of the teacher has a great deal 
 to do with the success of a class. That personality must be 
 attractive — attractive every day of the week, in school and 
 out. A sour visaged teacher will never hold a class. A 
 cross teacher will not attract. There are teachers who do 
 not fulfill the requirement in this respect; they are like the 
 deacon's wife — remarkably even-tempered — always cross. 
 If some teachers could see themselves as others see them 
 they would cut their own acquaintance on the spot. The 
 Sunday school teacher who wins pupils and keeps them need 
 not be beautiful of face or of form, an artist may not seek 
 her for his canvas; but beauty of character and conduct 
 must characterize her, or all the receipes that all the Sunday 
 school experts in the world might give her would not help 
 her. She must not patronize her class. She must place her- 
 self in close sympathy and contact with them. She must 
 learn something of their habits of thought and action, and 
 govern herself accordingly. She must recognize them in 
 the school, and on the street — certainly. I would rather 
 make twenty awkward blunders in speaking to twenty peo- 
 ple on the street I do not know than fail to speak to one 
 
SFJRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 6i 
 
 member of my class whom I do know. The hand-shake and 
 the "good-morning" must be hearty and genuine and im- 
 partial. Mr. Wanamaker comes before his great school of 
 several thousand people and as he .steps upon the rostrum 
 for the opening exercises he leans forward and, in the most 
 kindly tone, says, "Good morning, dear teachers and scholars 
 of the Bethany Sabbath school and visiting friends," and 
 they answer in concert, "Good morning, dear teacher." 
 There is a fountain playing in the middle of the room and 
 the tinkling drops almost audibly shout, "Joy, joy ;" and just 
 in front of me (before the opening of the school) stands a 
 young woman teacher, who has evidently been away from 
 home and has just returned, and, pressing close upon her, 
 caressing her, with faces all beaming with joy, are six little 
 girls, everyone clamoring for a kiss. Joy, joy, is written all 
 over the faces of that crowded school, from its superinten- 
 dent to its tiniest pupil, and in the notes of every song, in 
 the syllables of every word, in the breathings of every prayer. 
 John Wanamaker started a school several years ago with a 
 little group of poor children in a poor little room in a 
 neglected part of Philadelphia, and out of it has grown one 
 of the greatest churches in Christendom, and the greatest 
 Bible class ever known. The secret? O, tell me the secret, 
 you say. There is none to tell you except that God's spirit 
 of love and joy has found free course in the hearts of the 
 workers there. 
 
 What hinders your success, dear teacher? Yourself, 
 largely; God, never. 
 
 How can I best train up a boy in the way he should go? 
 Go that way myself. Many a boy would stay on the track 
 
62 SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 if the switch were not misplaced for him. The superinten- 
 dent may be largely to blame. It is his duty to make the 
 exercises attractive. He should vary the program, he 
 should see that the room is bright and clean and cheerful. 
 Flowers and pictures delight children as they do grown 
 folks. The music should be bright and happy. 
 
 The good teacher who struggles patiently against the dis- 
 couragements put in her way by a tardy, unsympathetic, un- 
 systematic superintendent is to be pitied ; and yet, — despite 
 all the disadvantages that teacher may suffer — his sacrifice 
 of self, his love for his class, his devotion to their good, his 
 careful preparation of the lesson, will win the confidence, the 
 respect, the love, the allegiance of his class. A loyal class 
 will grow. You know this. Win for yourself the affections 
 of your class and my word for it you need not worry for its 
 growth in numbers. It is the little things that affect the 
 teacher's place in the regard of the class. Here are some 
 little things any one of which, if persisted in by the teacher, 
 will spoil a class : Tardiness, whispering (and teachers do 
 a vast amount of it), lack of preparation (and the class surely 
 will discover it), inattention to the general exercises, lack of 
 variety in class work, lack of cordiality in the class and out 
 of it, lack of interest in them and their affairs. A teacher 
 who is a teacher of his class for but one hour Sunday morn- 
 ing and a stranger to the class through the balance of the 
 week, will not be successful in gaining or holding a class. A 
 class spirit may well be cultivated but more than that, create 
 a bond of personal friendship between yourself and every 
 member of your class, so that when Sunday morning comes 
 
SFRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 63 
 
 they are glad because they will meet and talk with you. 
 Greet them heartily when they come and bid them each 
 good-bye personally. That hand-shake often goes far into 
 the week. I make it a practice every Sunday to stand at the 
 door and shake the hand of every member and visitor of my 
 Bible class, and some days I have shaken hands with from 
 four hundred to five hundred. My arm aches when I am 
 done, and it is a relief when I turn from the door, but I re- 
 joice to know, as I do know, that a kind word at parting has 
 saved poor souls from going out into eternal night. I pray 
 you, teachers, make a business of this work of Sunday 
 school teaching. 
 
 Pray? Yes. Preach? Yes. Conventions? Yes. 
 Books? Yes. But, oh, get the spirit of the Master first of 
 everything and when you do, fewer questions will trouble 
 you ; for love will solve them. Do you know a good class, 
 a good school? Seek for the reason of it, and if you do not 
 find the heart to heart, hand to hand methods of Jesus Christ 
 exemplified by some good people in the institution, then my 
 observation is at fault. 
 
 Sunday school scholars, especially y^ung men and young 
 women, do not like controversy, hair splitting, speculations, 
 doctrineering I will call it. What kills more Bible classes 
 than any other one thing is a chronic controversionalist, or 
 hobby rider, who sees his pet theory or doctrine or ism in 
 every lesson and who insists on injecting it into every class 
 exercise. I pity you, teacher, if you have any such an one. 
 He is a bigger problem to solve than that one about free 
 will and predestination. My advice to you is to get him out 
 
64 SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 — gently if you can, forcibly if you must; for it is only a 
 question, if he remains, whether you will have a Bible class 
 at all after a while. 
 
 Be the kind leader, but nevertheless be the leader of your 
 class. 
 
 Now as to saving the children : 
 
 We are Sunday school teachers for this purpose and no 
 other, and strange to say we do not bring children to Christ 
 (more often than not) because we don't ask them. We for- 
 get the great commission. We pray that the children may 
 come and all the time the ivy is growing over the door be- 
 cause we do not open and bid them enter. 
 
 An old darkey who was asked if, in his experience, prayer 
 was ever answered, replied, "Well, sah, some pra'rs is ansud, 
 an' some isn't — 'pends on w'at you axes fo'. Jest arter de 
 wah, w'en it was mighty hard scratchin' fo' de culled bred- 
 dern, I 'bsarved dat, w'nebber I pray de Lo'd to sen' Mars 
 Peyton's fat turkeys fo' de old man, dere was no notice took 
 ob de partition; but w'en I pray dat He would sen' de ole 
 man fo' de turkey, de matter was tended to befo' sun-up 
 nex' mornin'." 
 
 What we need is that we go bring the children. God has 
 prepared the hearts of the little ones. All they need fre- 
 quently is your gentle, "Come." A friend called upon me 
 one evening just after dinner, and sitting down we talked 
 pleasantly of the weather, politics, and the happenings of 
 the day and the neighborhood, and presently he put on his 
 hat, said good-night, and left. In some fifteen minutes he 
 
SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 65 
 
 came rushing back, breathless, to say that he had forgotten 
 what he had come for, and that was to invite myself and 
 family to spend the evening at his house. 
 
 I fear we, as teachers, are acting much like this. We 
 teach, Sunday after Sunday, of the things of time and etern- 
 ity and go home to find we forgot our errand. Some times 
 we forget it forever and the little boys and girls grow up and 
 out of the school and we have never thought of the invita- 
 tion. 
 
 Once in a while, my dear friends, it will do you good to 
 take your class aside individually, ask them the great ques- 
 tion, and hold open the door. 
 
 Try it, and my word for it, God will bless you and give 
 you souls for your hire. 
 
MASONRY, AND THE YEAR BEFORE US. 
 
 IN A UGURAL ADDRESS DELIVERED ON BEING INSTALLED 
 
 AS MASTER OF CORINTHIAN LODGE, F. AND A. M , AT 
 
 THE MASONIC TEMPLE IN DETROIT, JAN., iSgy. 
 
 Worshipful Sir, and Brothers and Friends of Corinthian 
 Lodge : — Agreeable to a custom adopted in this Lodge, it 
 becomes my duty as well as pleasure to address you upon 
 this occasion. Allow me to preface my remarks, however, 
 by requesting that you be patient with me if my discourse 
 betrays lack of due preparation, for I am, and have been for 
 a week past, under the doctor's care and am really not in fit 
 condition to appear before you in any capacity. This must 
 excuse also my reading from manuscript, which sort of ad- 
 dress I am not accustomed to make. I would be unfaithful 
 to my duty and would do violence to my own desire in the 
 matter if I were to say nothing on this occasion so import- 
 ant to me, and, I trust and pray, so important to Corinthian 
 Lodge. I have thought that if I could not enter into so 
 learned a disquisition upon Masonry as did my worthy pre- 
 decessor on the occasion of the last installation, I could at 
 least express to you my grateful appreciation of the honor 
 conferred upon me and outline to you something of my 
 aspirations in connection with the office to which you have 
 chosen me. Before speaking in this direction, however, I 
 would say a few words that occur to me in regard to 
 
 66 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 67 
 
 Masonry in general, for the profit, and, I trust, pleasure of 
 any who may be present who are not members of the An- 
 cient Order. 
 
 Ponderous books have been written by men who have 
 spent their lives in the study of ancient mysteries, to show 
 that Masonry had its beginning with the very dawn of his- 
 tory. The question may well be left with antiquarians ; it 
 can be of no vital or really profitable use to us. We live in 
 an age that is essentially "up-to-date." The fact that a 
 thing is old has little weight in the estimation of the prac- 
 tical thought of to-day, which only asks, what is it worth 
 now, what is its value in the present, what influence for 
 good or evil does it now exert, is it a factor that will go to 
 affect the future? Whatever may have been the status of 
 Masonry in the days of the Pharos and Ptolemies, or in the 
 days of the Medes and Persians, or the Greeks and the 
 Romans ; whatever good purpose it may have served during 
 the dark ages when superstition and oppression reigned 
 throughout the world to keep burning the fires of true pat- 
 riotism and to keep alive a spirit of true fraternity among 
 men ; whatever value it may have had several centuries ago 
 as sowing the seed of liberty of thought and speech, and 
 freedom of action, that finally blossomed forth in Magna 
 Charta in England, in the reformation in Germany, and, 
 some time later, in the great revolution in France ; whatever 
 of value the institution might have had in the early days of 
 our own country in fostering the spirit of fraternity and 
 binding together by closer ties the immortal patriots of the 
 revolution when George Washington was at the head of the 
 
68 SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 American craft and Benjamin Franklin was high up in its 
 councils ; whatever, I say, may have been its history, as the 
 great stream of Masonry has flowed on through the ages 
 gathering to itself force and volume by the gathering to 
 itself, from a million sources, elements of strength and in- 
 fluence, and by the gathering about its altars the greatest 
 and best of men of all ages and all civilized lands, the ques- 
 tion most to be considered not only by Masons themselves 
 but by men who may from time to time consider the advis- 
 ability of joining the institution, is, what has Masonry to 
 offer now? Of what value is it in this day and age of the 
 world? What place does it occupy in the busy life of the 
 latter part of the 19th century? Is its mission fulfilled? Or 
 is it still a living force with a living purpose and a right to 
 continued existence? 
 
 To answer these important questions the fundamental 
 principles of Masonry should be understood. Masonry, 
 while a religious institution, is not a religion. That some 
 men make it a religion is not the fault of the institution itself 
 any more than are the beauties of nature to be held to ac- 
 count for their being made objects of worship, as they have 
 been in all ages of the world. So good have seemed the 
 principles of the Order, so little subject to criticism by even 
 the most captious, that some men in the enthusiasm of their 
 study and observation have thrown themselves down before 
 it as before their God, and have offered up to it their adora- 
 tions, forgetting that principles and rules of action and laws 
 of right-doing are the creatures and not the creator, — the 
 will of God rather than God Himself. Modern Masonry, and 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 69 
 
 here I say modern Masonry because however far back we 
 go for the beginnings of the stream, we must recognize a 
 difiference in that stream at the various stages of its pro- 
 gress, just as a river will partake of the color and character 
 of the soil and surroundings through which it flows, vary- 
 ing in volume, in depth, in swiftness of current, in smooth- 
 ness of surface, in color, in taste and even in smell accord- 
 ing to the character of the bottom over which it flows and 
 the banks beneath which it runs, — modern Masonry seems 
 to have been constructed or grown around the idea that men 
 have sought and are ever seeking central and vital truths 
 upon which all may unite. Universal brotherhood has been 
 the ideal toward which social reformers, philosophers, and 
 statesmen of the better class, have been looking ever since 
 Luther awakened the idea of freedom of religious thought, 
 ever since Gutenberg gave the printing press to the world, 
 and ever since Columbus opened up the path of discovery. 
 But universal brotherhood without some great central prin- 
 ciples upon which all men may unite as a basis of fraternal 
 action must forever remain a philosopher's dream. 
 
 I am here to say that Masonry is practically the only in- 
 stitution the world has ever seen that has collected to itself, 
 and that teaches in every word of its ritual and every act of 
 its ceremonial, those universal principles and rules of right 
 action — and only those — upon which all men of whatever 
 class, condition, sect, nationality, and political opinion may 
 unite. So broad and so universally recognized have been 
 these principles and rules that underlie the Masonic Fra- 
 ternity that never in all its wonderful history, extending 
 
70 SmAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 through centuries and throughout every civiHzed country, 
 no division of opinion, no separation into parties, no clash 
 or conflict has ever taken place respecting them. Within 
 the broad borders of Masonry there can never occur what 
 has divided the body of Christ's people into an hundred 
 more or less antagonistic bodies. The foundation stone, 
 therefore, of Masonry universal is universal truth. This 
 universal truth is not only the foundation of Masonry, it is 
 Masonry itself. From the moment the applicant for initia- 
 tion steps within the portals of the Lodge to the moment 
 when he is declared to be a Master Mason and entitled to 
 all the rights and benefits thereof, every step of his progress, 
 every word that he hears, every word that he utters, every 
 object upon which his eyes rest, every sound that greets his 
 ears is a manifestation in some form, distinct, clear and im- 
 pressive, of universal truth in some of its many aspects. It 
 may be virtue, it may be fortitude, it may be courtesy, it 
 may be charity, it may be benevolence, it may be in honor 
 preferring one another, it may be care for the defenseless, it 
 may be sympathy for the oppressed, it may be filial affec- 
 tion, it may be reverence to God, it may be now one, now 
 another of these, but first or last, let me say it to the ever- 
 lasting honor of Masonry, before the seeker after truth shall 
 have finished his progress, he will have learned all that is 
 contained in what St. James writes in the New Testament is 
 pure religion and undefiled, "to visit the fatherless and the 
 widow in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from 
 the world." I make the assertion that there is not one 
 virtue, not one heroic trait of religious character, not one 
 
SFRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 71 
 
 grand and enduring principle of morality to be found be- 
 tween the covers of the Book of Books that is not taught 
 before the altar of a Masonic Lodge. 
 
 You will not misunderstand me when I say that the 
 church has much to learn of Masonry. I have been im- 
 pressed with the thought that the church, divine in its relig- 
 ion, its mission, its ministry, and its works, pays too much 
 attention to the duty man owes to God and too little to the 
 duty man owes to his felloAvmen. There is one thing of 
 which Masonry may well be proud. Masons are taught to 
 love one another. This injunction finds repeated utterance 
 in the Lodge, and the ritual and ceremonial, both by ex- 
 ample and illustration, impress it. 
 
 Without seeming to draw too dark a picture of the future, 
 I yet feel that the coming generation has before it for set- 
 tlement some of the mightiest problems the world has ever 
 met. It does not require a prophet to see that the unsettled 
 social conditions that now exist, the growth of selfishness, 
 and avarice, manifesting itself in hurtful combinations, are 
 hurrying our civilization on to a conflict between the var- 
 ious forces of society, the character of which must cause 
 even the stoutest of us to shudder. At no time in the his- 
 tory of the world has there been greater need for the spread 
 of the spirit of fraternity, forbearance, patience, — in a 
 word, of the spirit of brotherly love. Such a spirit is not 
 taught in the exchanges, in the market places, in politics. 
 Nowhere, I claim, can it be found taught by precept and ex- 
 ample as it is within the Masonic Lodges. If you will look 
 for a true democracy you will not find it in any Christian 
 
72 SFRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 church of which I have knowledge. In most with which it 
 has been my fortune to be acquainted the brother with the 
 longest pocket-book has the best seat, while the poor widow 
 with nothing but her mite either has no seat at all or finds 
 an obscure one where she can worship God not only unob- 
 served, but unobserving. The proud boast of Masonry is 
 that within the Lodge room we meet upon the level. We 
 recognize neither differences of political opinion, differ- 
 ences of religious opinion, differences of pocket-book, dif- 
 ferences of caste, nor differences of social station. No dif- 
 ferences are recognized within this room save differences of 
 worth and merit. For the orderly dispensation of the work, 
 officers are required, but in the choice of these the Lodge is 
 supposed to choose, and generally does choose, those who 
 best can work and best agree. 
 
 During the dark ages the religion of Jesus Christ, 
 trampled almost from off the earth by the barbarous hordes 
 of the north and the south, was kept alive by the pious 
 monks within their cloisters, hidden away for generations, 
 awaiting the oncoming of a newer and a better age. It 
 is interesting to note the analogy. During the reign of op- 
 pression that existed for many centuries in England, France 
 and Germany the only spots where the principles of relig- 
 ious and political liberty, the only oases in the immense des- 
 erts of oppression where true fraternity between man and 
 man bloomed in living colors were the old Masonic Lodges. 
 Here were kept alive the seed principles of brotherhood 
 and equality which the world had for centuries forgotten. 
 
 If strife must come, as I have hinted is possible, between 
 the conflicting elements of society; if a social upheaval is 
 
SFRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 73 
 
 necessary and a reconstruction of our political and social 
 systems required, may not Masonry again play the part, 
 indeed, may she not now be playing the part, of a conserva- 
 tor of these fundamental principles which men through pas- 
 sion and prejudice are so prone to forget? In the provi- 
 dence of God may not this great institution, founded upon 
 His eternal truths, form the right wing of Jehovah's army 
 in the coming conflict ready to spring full panoplied into 
 the field to do battle, not for the supremacy of class, of sect, 
 or of opinion, but for the preservation of those good princi- 
 ples which form the basis of all true society. 
 
 To return, therefore, to the question I asked in the begin- 
 ning, — to what purpose is Masonry now, I would answer, 
 in order that she may continue to teach and preserve the 
 fundamental truths which all men must recognize, and more 
 particularly that she may conserve the spirit of fraternity 
 and of brotherly love that history has shown us men are 
 prone to lose. 
 
 Now, my brothers of Corinthian Lodge, a few words to 
 you particularly: 
 
 I believe I appreciate thoroughly the dignity and the 
 responsibility of the office to which you have called me. I 
 know your anxiety that the affairs of this Lodge may be ad- 
 ministered with fidelity and with zeal. You want that we 
 shall hold all the ground we have gained in the four years 
 since tremblingly and yet with confidence we wrote over our 
 banner the new name — Corinthian, and went forth to make 
 that name illustrious, and also that we make material ad- 
 vances. I think I understand the temper of the men of this 
 
74 SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 Lodge. They have shown in the past that they will let 
 nothing stand in the way of achieving their cherished ends. 
 When leaving the old "Oriental" home they went out, 
 something like the Puritans from the old world, because 
 they had set up for themselves an ideal home which they 
 longed to make a real one. 
 
 I joined you in that hope. I met with you in the solemn 
 stillness of secret retreats to plan not rebellion against our 
 mother but peaceable separation. 
 
 I sympathize with you in your every aspiration for Corin- 
 thian Lodge. Nay, perhaps I go farther than do you. I 
 now ask the privilege of hinting at one or two points of 
 vantage that I wish we might take and occupy during the 
 coming year. 
 
 I believe the time has come in our life as a Lodge when 
 we should begin to practice that virtue which we teach, but 
 which we are slow to practice, namely. Economy. I think 
 it may be truly said that we have shown superhuman faith 
 in ourselves in the past few years in the way we have ex- 
 pended money for the machinery of our work. I rejoice 
 that we are, though young, yet rich in all the accessories of 
 our work. The candidate who takes his degrees in this 
 Lodge is certainly highly favored. 
 
 Having attained to excellence in this particular I shall 
 ask the Lodge, now that we have done so much, to pursue 
 for a time a policy of retrenchment. Not that we may 
 merely lay up money, for I have always held that a Masonic 
 Lodge has little business with a bank account as such, but 
 that we may have money and having it, spend it for char- 
 itable and useful purposes outside of those purposes which 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 75 
 
 may be termed selfish and personal. The wealth to make 
 us boast is not the wealth of gilded ceremonials. Those 
 deeds of charity we have done will stay forever with us ; and 
 that wealth we have so bestowed we only keep. The other 
 is not ours. The genius of Masonry, my brothers, does not 
 consist in frequenting established meetings, or decorating 
 ourselves with the insignia belonging to our profession. If 
 there be a brother that dare pass by his neighbor in distress, 
 or because he himself possesses the light, would turn the 
 blind man out of his way, acknowledge him not. The name 
 of brother is an empty sound, indeed, if we refuse our hand 
 to one fallen into a pit, disdain to relieve the sorrows of the 
 widow and the orphan, or discard from our lives the exer- 
 cise of charity. 
 
 A Masonic Lodge is not free from the danger of forget- 
 ting practical charity. One of the unfortunate circum- 
 stances surrounding our Lodge is that there is so little call 
 upon us for an exercise of Masonic charity. Unhappy the 
 man who reaches a position where he ceases to feel the great 
 pulsating heart of humanity. Unhappy and unfortunate 
 too the Lodge that finds no requirement for the exercise of 
 that greatest of Masonic virtues, — not merely benevolence, 
 but beneficence. 
 
 All hail the day, I say, when we shall as quickly and as 
 often and as cheerfully draw out our warrants for Masonic 
 charity as we do for the gilt and glitter of Masonic ceremon- 
 ials. 
 
 In the matter of accuracy, in my work, and in the work of 
 my subordinate officers, I hope I may meet the demands of 
 
76 SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 the most exacting of my brothers ; may I ask in return their 
 faithful support in an effort to make the year one of good 
 work and plenty of it, a year of careful and conscientious 
 effort to upbuild not only Corinthian Lodge, but Masonry 
 generally, by a wise application in our own lives of the use- 
 ful lessons we here learn. 
 
 In conclusion let me express the hope and indict the 
 prayer to the Grand Architect of the Universe that this 
 Lodge may inspire and preserve the love and respect of all 
 who learn of her ; that she may be liberal in the promotion 
 of all good and useful undertakings. May the indigent and 
 distressed at all times be subjects of her sympathy and con- 
 cern; may her charity flow in quiet, but constant streams 
 from a fountain that is at no time suffered to sustain the 
 smallest diminution, and may no pursuit of hers, however 
 momentous, be permitted to interrupt her systematic atten- 
 tion to the children of want. 
 
 Let us also remember that while we are to act with 
 especial regard to the well doing and the well being of those 
 of the "Household of Faith," yet God hath made mankind 
 one mighty brotherhood, himself their Master, and the 
 world their Lodge. The prophetic words of Freemasonry's 
 immortal laureate bard are ever re-echoed in faith and hope 
 and triumph by all true brothers of the mystic tie : 
 
 "Then let us pray that come it may 
 As come it will for a' that. 
 
 That man to man, the world o'er 
 Shall brothers be for a' that." 
 
BETA BACHELORS. 
 
 DELI VERED AT A BANQUET IN HONOR OF THE FO UNDER S 
 
 OF THE BETA THETA PI COLLEGE FRATERNITY, AT 
 
 THE BURNET HOUSE IN CINCINNATI, IN j8gs. 
 
 For fear that a riot may occur during the progress of my 
 speech, when it is discovered that I am not a bachelor, I 
 think I had better avert a lynching by making the confes- 
 sion and tendering the apology now. 
 
 In trying to conjure up within myself the spirit of the 
 bachelor so that I might appear, at least, upon speaking 
 terms with my subject, I am reminded that I was born a 
 bachelor, and I remember the yelp of despair I let loose 
 when I discovered the fact. For a few brief years I experi- 
 enced the questionable joys of the bachelor life until one fine 
 day in June ten years ago I slipped my trolley and became 
 thenceforth a monomaniac on baby foods and first assistant 
 tacks collector in my humble home. Until a few hours ago 
 I had hoped to conceal this fact, but while telling Brother 
 Hepburn how glad I was that we bachelors were to be given 
 a chance to-night, Brother Beal, who prides himself on an 
 intimate acquaintance with me, which acquaintance has 
 often cost me pain and embarrassment, came up and ab- 
 ruptly asked me how I left the babies. Whereupon, my 
 presence of mind, at no time a very stable quantity, took the 
 wings of the morning — or rather, of the evening. To add 
 
 77 
 
78 SFRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 to my discomfiture, the aroma of paregoric from a bottle 
 of the stuff that Beal carries with him as a weapon of offense 
 and defense against a little Beal-zebub, — or rather Bub-ze- 
 Beal — began to assail the nostrils of Hepburn. I then gave 
 all up as lost. I then knew that concealment was vain. 
 
 From the fact that the committee selected a married man 
 for this toast, I conclude that the committee is composed of 
 bachelors and that they had one of four reasons for doing 
 so: Either, first, bachelor Betas are so modest they can 
 not bear to hear themselves talk ; or second, they wished to 
 shine by borrowed lustre ; or third, they feared exposure 
 might result if they asked one of their own number to talk, 
 preferring one or two stray shots from one who indistinctly 
 sees the mark at which he aims rather than the well-directed 
 shots of one who knows whereof he shoots ; or fourth, they 
 cherished the diabolical purpose of showing off their own 
 virtues by placing before you a brother so thoroughly satu- 
 rated with matrimony as to present a horrible example. 
 
 But may not a married man be the fittest person after all 
 to respond to this toast? 
 
 A writer — anonymous when he wrote it — so truly and 
 beautifully pictured the joys and sorrows of a married life, 
 that critics said, the man who wrote "The Reveries of a 
 Bachelor" must be a married man. The author, in a preface 
 to a subsequent edition, thanked the critics for having 
 spoken so kindly of him and expressed the wish that the 
 thought were as true as it was kind, "and yet," he adds, "I 
 am inclined to think that bachelors are the only safe and 
 secure observers of all the phases of married life. The rest 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 79 
 
 of the world have their hobbies, and by law as well as by 
 immemorial custom are reckoned unfair witnesses in every- 
 thing relating to their matrimonial affairs." 
 
 If this be good reasoning, may not married men be the 
 only safe and secure observers of all the phases of bachelor 
 life? Certain it is, all bachelors have their hobbies, and 
 however unfair witnesses as to matrimonial affairs may be 
 husband and wife, surely no bachelor will turn state's evi- 
 dence and "peach" on himself and his "pals." 
 
 If, then, it is an allowable presumption that a married man 
 is the best witness as to bachelors' ways and character, the 
 speaker who stands before you claims a right to the floor 
 from having married as early and as hard as the law allows, 
 from having stayed married with a persistence worthy of a 
 better cause, and, furthermore, from having been a parent 
 as often and as fast as indulgent nature and an over-kind 
 Providence would permit. 
 
 Having proven to you my right to life, liberty and the 
 pursuit of my subject, and that I am not a total misfit, I pro- 
 ceed to add my mite (I trust it may not prove a subtraction 
 from it) to the splendor of this great event in the life of our 
 beloved fraternity. 
 
 According to my observations there are all sorts of bach- 
 elors as there are all sorts of benedicts : 
 
 The timid bachelor who starts at the rustle of a gown — a 
 shyness that generally comes from thinking too much of 
 one's self; the bold, bad bachelor who rushes in where 
 angels fear to tread ; the society bachelor whose chief glory 
 
8o SFRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 lies in the creases in his trousers and the amount and va- 
 riety of his twaddle; the irreproachable bachelor for whom 
 God forgot to make, and has since declared he never will 
 make, a fit partner ; the gastronomic bachelor to whom the 
 proper turn of a beefsteak and the correct art of dining out 
 is the chief end of man ; the disappointed bachelor who is 
 a prey to the blear-eyed old fable that a man can love but 
 once (which every college boy knows to be false), who, sit- 
 ting down in the ashes of some old love, refuses to do the 
 Phoenix act or be resurrected until about 10:30 p. m. in 
 life some sugar-cured old maid gets on her skates and glides 
 nimbly over the icy indifference of his exterior into his little 
 dried-up heart ; the promiscuous bachelor, so spread out in 
 his affections and consequently so thin in places that the 
 dear girls all see through him, and for whom I adapt rather 
 awkwardly a verse of Owen Meredith : 
 
 The man who seeks one woman in life, and but one. 
 May hope to win her before life be done; 
 But he who seeks all women, wherever he goes. 
 Only reaps from the hopes that around him he sows 
 A harvest of bitter regrets. 
 
 Then there is the Beta Bachelor and here my Pegasus 
 sprouts his wings and tail feathers. 
 
 The Creator has left no department of his universe with- 
 out some examples of his best workmanship. He made 
 man, and to show what he could do were he to try he made 
 an Abraham, a Moses, a Solomon, a Confucius, a Socrates. 
 He made woman, and you remember the good Book says : 
 "The Lord made the earth in six days and said it was good 
 
SFRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 8i 
 
 and rested." He made man and said he was good and rested. 
 He then made woman out of the rib of a man, but no men- 
 tion is made of his resting, and there has been no rest for 
 God or man ever since. He made woman, and to show what 
 he could do he made your mother and mine, and the mothers 
 of our children. He made the girls — God bless them — and 
 as the tip top of creation in this line he made the Beta girls, 
 "pure and lovely, passing fair, who with brightest smiles 
 enliven all our way." He made the forests and he made the 
 giant trees of the Sierra Nevadas. He made the nations, 
 and to prove his skill he made this glorious land of ours. He 
 made, I verily believe, the college fraternity, and to show 
 what he could do at his best he made as the joy and inspira- 
 tion of ten thousand hearts and lives, our Beta Theta Pi. 
 He made Betas, and as models he made a Knox, a Hepburn, 
 a Lozier, a Ransom. Then to show that he didn't care much 
 what he made, he made bachelors. Then some woman said, 
 "God made him, let him pass for a man." Then for fear 
 every one would pass and nobody would order him up, he 
 took a brand-new piece of clay and by working overtime 
 made the best bachelor he knew how, and putting him on 
 the shelf to dry, he called it a Beta Bachelor. And he has 
 been on the shelf ever since — and for that matter he has been 
 dry ever since. 
 
 The Beta Bachelor is the ideal bachelor. His blushes are 
 not the hectic flush of the dissipated dilletante, but the ex- 
 ternal decoration of a pure and guileless heart ; his conver- 
 sation evidences a cultured mind; his conduct betrays na- 
 ture's gentleman. His handshake expresses the heart of 
 good fellowship. 
 
82 SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 You may say I am drawing the long bow, and that re- 
 minds me: Two boys stood on a street corner disputing. 
 A benevolent stranger overheard it and said, "Tut, tut, boys, 
 don't quarrel, settle your differences; what is it all about 
 anyway?" One boy spoke up, saying : "He said his grand- 
 father was eighteen feet high and I said, 'Oh, what a whop- 
 per. He couldn't go in a door, or sit at a table or lie in a 
 bed, nor nothin'." Then I said, 'but maybe he could, it de- 
 pends on where he grow'd. Out in California they have 
 trees 300 feet high and 100 feet around, and my grandfather 
 killed a snake out there three miles long.' And he said, 
 'Oh, what a whopper.' " "Well, boys,'' said the stranger, 
 "better harmonize your differences ; can't you each come 
 down a little?" Then the tall grandfather boy looked sul- 
 len, and the long snake boy said, "Then let him take oflf 
 twelve feet from the height of his grandfather and I'll take 
 a mile off my snake, and maybe we can agree." And so I 
 say if my brothers who preceded me will take something 
 off the enthusiasm of their statements I will agree to abate 
 a little of mine ; but I don't want to compromise. The 
 Beta bachelor lacks but one thing. "Capital composition," 
 said Joshua Reynolds, the great painter, examining a pic- 
 ture he wished to praise, "correct drawing, color, tone, 
 Hghts and shadows — excellent; but it wants — THAT," 
 snapping his fingers. The Beta bachelor is clean, he is 
 sober, he is cultured, he is whole-hearted, but he wants — 
 THAT. And "that" is about 150 pounds of Beta femi- 
 ninity. 
 
 Perhaps it will not be amiss to say a word to the bachelor 
 lover who, like a ripe berry on the sunny side of the bush, 
 
SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. Z^ 
 
 is about to fall into the basket. With all due respect to the 
 girl of your choice, let me picture to you the girl that you 
 need. I quote from Dr. John Hall : 
 
 "The girl you need is the girl who is mother's right- 
 hand; the girl who can cuddle the little ones next best to 
 her mother ; smooth out the tangles in the domestic skein 
 when things get twisted ; the girl whose father takes com- 
 fort in her for something better than beauty, and whose 
 big brothers are proud of her for something that out-ranks 
 the ability to dance or shine in society; good girls, — girls 
 who are sweet right straight out from the heart to the 
 lips; innocent, pure and simple girls, with less knowledge 
 of sin and duplicity and evil doing at twenty than the pert 
 little school girl of ten has, all too often ; careful and prudent 
 girls who think enough of the generous father who toils to 
 maintain them in comfort and of the gentle mother who 
 denies herself that they may have pretty things, to count 
 the cost and draw the line between the essentials and the 
 non-essentials ; unselfish girls who are eager to be a joy and 
 comfort in the home rather than an expense and useless 
 burden ; girls with hearts that are full of tenderness and 
 sympathy, with tears that flow for other people's ills, and 
 smiles that light outward their own beautiful thoughts. 
 You can find "lots" of clever girls and brilliant girls and 
 witty girls ; what you bachelors want is a consignment of 
 jolly girls, warm-hearted and impulsive girls ; kind and en- 
 tertaining to their own folk, and with little desire to shine 
 in this garish world. With such a girl by your side, life 
 would freshen up for you as the weather does under the 
 spell of a summer shower." 
 
84 SFJR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 I have wondered, in the Beta Bachelor's presence, how 
 the lone traveler can be so genial. In times past, my home 
 has been a favored wayside inn whose doors have swung 
 wide open to the Beta Bachelor, wandering and footsore, 
 and I betray no confidences when T say that in the quiet 
 glow of my library fire, amid domestic tranquility the most 
 seductive, I have seen the veil of the temple rent in twain, 
 and have got a glimpse within the Holy of Holy to see the 
 sacred fire still burning upon the altar. All Beta Bachelors, 
 my sisters, have not hung their harps upon the willows, for 
 I have heard its strings vibrate with such tremulous ten- 
 derness and such plaintive sweetness that I have thought 
 the very genius of love had touched them, and as I have 
 helped him don his overcoat and seen him turn with a shud- 
 der of reluctance out into the lonely night, I have wondered 
 what in the deuce the matrimonial bureaus could be doing 
 with so much good material floating around unused. And 
 as I have watched his retreating form I have said, "poor 
 fellow, he's got it and don't know it," then I have shut the 
 door and with a sad yet thankful heart I have blown out the 
 gas and gone to my wife and little ones. 
 
 But what if I were to openly proclaim, "There are no 
 Beta Bachelors!" Will you question the assertion? 
 
 Let me recall to the mind of each one of you other days 
 — days perhaps long gone by. Do I not see you in all the 
 strength and beauty of your young manhood standing "at 
 an altar, sending love's sweet incense high," your heart 
 swelling with mingled pride and anticipation, and at your 
 side a vision 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 85 
 
 Fair, oh so fair, 
 
 Thou art fairer, dear Beta, 
 
 Than earth knows beside. 
 
 Do I not catch from your lips strong vows of eternal 
 fidelity to her 
 
 "Long as time shall last or earth shall have a day." 
 
 Do I not see you, in the presence of your brothers, regis- 
 tering a promise in High Heaven that you will 
 
 Cherish no love for another 
 
 Tho' queenly and charming she be. 
 
 Have you forgotten this union and this solemn marriage 
 vow? Then you wrote home about it; parents in some 
 cases rebelled, but sooner or later came the "Bless you, my 
 children." You held high carnival in the care-free heyday 
 of your young married life, and be it said to the credit of 
 both of you, you have courted and loved her more as the 
 years have gone on. 
 
 Then the children came ! What? I, a staid old bachelor 
 with wife and children? Yes ; and it is a wise father that 
 knoweth his own children. The children came. They 
 crept into your heart by day and by night. They filled 
 every crevice of your life. They warmed you with their 
 kisses. They drove the cares of the day into the blessed 
 oblivion of the night, — your children — yours by the fair 
 bride you took at that altar in the other days. Children of 
 fancy — of dreams — of memory — yes, but none the less yours 
 and hers. They bear the marks of their lineage; they are 
 
86 SFRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 different from other men's children. You would not ex- 
 change them for theirs, and when the evening of life comes 
 on and you fall to musing before the dying embers you will 
 hear the voices of these children. You will hear them when 
 other sounds grow dim, and I verily believe that, clear and 
 distinct above the harmonies that will greet you on the 
 other shore, you will hear the sweet voices of these bright, 
 beautiful, memory children of Beta Theta Pi. 
 
DOES THE CHURCH SHRINK FROM CONTACT 
 WITH PRACTICAL LIFE? 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE "BUSINESS MEN'S CLASS" 
 
 OF THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, 
 
 DETROIT, NOVEMBER lo, 18g6. 
 
 The question is one that demands an understanding of its 
 terms. Let us try to reach that understanding. 
 
 In the first place, "church," I take it, means the great 
 body of Christ's followers, the world over and of whatever 
 name, as it exists to-day. "Contact" means touch, — 
 physical touch as the outgrowth of a desire to be near, to 
 deal with, to associate and mingle with. In a sense, all life 
 is "practical life," so I presume by this expression is meant 
 REAL life as opposed to ideal or imaginative life ; in other 
 words, the life of the valley and the plain, of hard work-a- 
 day facts and men, human joy and sorrow, pain and pleas- 
 ure, success and failure, as opposed to the mountain top of 
 superhuman exaltation, joy, peace, such as the three dis- 
 ciples found on the Mount of Transfiguration which they 
 longed should be their eternal abiding place, forgetful of 
 their brethren in the valley and of the duties the Master had 
 laid upon them. "Shrink" means draw back, retire, as from 
 danger; recoil physically because of fear, horror, distrust. 
 One scarcely shrinks because of indifference, but there must 
 be mental fear, horror, distrust or distaste. Such was the 
 
 87 
 
88 SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 shrinking of the Pharisee who passed by on the other side, 
 withdrawing himself from the presence of a distasteful sight, 
 so different from the unorthodox Samaritan in the story. 
 The subject has relation, I take it, to church methods, ideas 
 and work. So the question, robbed of its general terms, 
 may be said to be, Do the great body of Christ's followers, 
 taken as a whole, recoil or draw away from actual sympathy 
 and direct touch with common, every-day life and its prob- 
 lems? 
 
 The question is an important one for the church to con- 
 sider because men are asking it on the rostrum, in the press, 
 on the street, in the shop, and some are doing so in the 
 pulpit. Only yesterday, sitting in a barber's chair, my 
 barber said to me, "If the Christian people as a whole in 
 this country would stand up solidly against the saloon, it 
 would be robbed of most of its cursed fruits, if not alto- 
 gether banished." It is a very general complaint, on the 
 part of non-church people, that the church manifests no 
 sympathy with the common, every-day problems of life. In 
 this case my barber would have admitted to me that the 
 church taught temperance, that the Sunday school taught 
 temperance, that most Christian men were temperance men, 
 but does the church as a whole shrink from direct and im- 
 mediate contact with this evil? To make it clear, you say, 
 in the abstract, that our religion teaches justice, that there- 
 fore, least of all, should a Christian church owe money. So 
 when at the end of the year a debt appears, you wise men 
 get together, you face the evil, you devise a plan, you pro- 
 pose it to the church, your church rises to a man and you 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 89 
 
 put an end to the evil. The outsider sees the problems of 
 poverty, of dependence, of crime, of intemperance, of mu- 
 nicipal reform arising out of actual conditions subversive 
 of morality and Christianity, degrading to the community 
 and to every individual in it, threatening the perpetuity of 
 good government and the welfare of his children, and he 
 looks to this great engine — the greatest engine for good the 
 world has ever seen — and asks. How do you meet these 
 questions? With the sword of the Lord? or not at all? 
 
 So the question is an important one. The good name of 
 the church and of its glorious Founder is at stake. If such 
 things are not for the church as a whole to act upon, but 
 for the individual as an individual, is it for the church as a 
 whole to instruct the individual through its ministers in 
 these matters? The question is well worth the asking, and 
 answers will be various. Our question is a direct one and 
 asks for a yes or a no. 
 
 In answering this question we inevitably think of the 
 churches within our observation. We think of our friend 
 Wood's church and we say, no, she doesn't shrink at any- 
 thing ; we think of some of our Fort street or JeflFerson ave- 
 nue, and possibly some of our Woodward avenue churches, 
 and we hesitate before saying, no. But our range of vision 
 is limited and, at most, our answer must be a matter of 
 opinion, largely biased by our feelings and by what we have 
 read, and our reading is liable to lead us to extremes of an- 
 tagonism to the church unless we take great care. I have 
 for about a year been the leader of a Bay View Reading 
 Circle — one of the integral parts of the Methodist Chau- 
 tauqua. One of our studies was sociology and the readings 
 
9© SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 put into the hands of the thousands of young men and 
 young women pursuing this study had the following head- 
 ings : 
 
 1. There is a social problem. In the last analysis it is 
 none other than the distribution of wealth. 
 
 2. Christianity is the cause of our social problems. 
 
 3. It is the failures of Christians that perpetuate and in- 
 tensify social problems. 
 
 4. The failures of Christians are due to the failures of 
 Christian preachers. 
 
 This is a severe arraignment, and a great church through 
 one of its agencies substantially admits its truth when it 
 places this book in the hands of the young. 
 
 If it is so, and if the church admits it, that our social 
 problems are problems because of the laziness, the indififer- 
 ence, un-Christlikeness of the church, then, in the name of 
 all that is good, let the church prostrate itself before God 
 and ask His forgiveness and rise to a new manner of life. 
 
 My own answer to the question asked is that the church 
 is slowly and laboriously becoming more practical in its 
 work, that it does shrink from contact with daily life and its 
 problems, but that it is coming more and more into sym- 
 pathy with them. I do not think, in all fairness, a yes or a 
 no can be given to the question. 
 
 One trouble with us nowadays when we come to reform 
 things and to philosophize and to criticize, is that we be- 
 come impatient. We want to see the old world remade in 
 a minute. We forget that God was working away on this 
 planet several years before we came here, and that He will 
 
SFRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 91 
 
 be here several years after we leave. "The mills of the gods 
 grind slowly," etc. It took many thousand years of error 
 and sin to prepare for Christ, and the student of history will 
 tell you that the cause of evil was never so triumphant in the 
 history of the world as it was the night when the star rested 
 over Bethlehem. One need be only a casual reader of his- 
 tory to know that since that first Christmas night this world 
 has every morning been bathed in a clearer, purer sunshine, 
 and the conscientious student of history will tell you that 
 Christ working through His visible church upon the hearts 
 of men has brought about the transformation. 
 
 If you want a hopeful, joyful religion in your heart, and a 
 philosophy that will bear you up amid the clash of conflict- 
 ing opinions and the threatened ruin of existing conditions, 
 read the history of the church of Christ and with it the 
 history of civilization and note the men who have led in all 
 the onward movements of mind and matter. You will find 
 them God-fearing men of the church of God, inspired by 
 His loving word. 
 
 The Christian church, I hold, is doing more to better the 
 conditions and the daily life of men and women, the world 
 over, than all other agencies combined. The power and 
 effectiveness of the church is exerted in ways the world can 
 not well measure — hence the reason for so much unjust 
 criticism. The method of the church is Christ's method. 
 Men charge Christ with favoring intemperance, folly, 
 slavery, etc., etc. Why? Because He uttered no philippics 
 against these things. He came eating and drinking. It is 
 remarkable how often we find Him sitting at a feast. His 
 
92 SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 companions at such feasts were not very orthodox. He 
 preserved a poor, outcast woman of the town from insult 
 by bidding her stay at His side and rebuking her assailants. 
 He urged servants to obey their masters. The church has 
 largely been subject to the same criticism — unjust to a de- 
 gree, because of a misconception of Christ and His teach- 
 ing. Modern reform strikes at the offspring of evil, while 
 Christ and Christianity seek to slay the parent of evil. At 
 the root of all social problems lie great prmciples, great 
 laws, great tendencies. It is here that Christ sought to 
 work. Once you have made love the ruling motive of a 
 man's life — love to God and his fellow-man — and you have 
 solved a thousand problems for him; you have made him 
 a steady force for good to himself, to his neighbor, to the 
 State. All efifort at reform from other motives than those 
 that lie at the basis of Christian character must of necessity 
 be ephemeral in their results. The force exerted in this 
 world toward better things is a constant, though slow- 
 working force, — and such was the work of Jesus Christ. I 
 believe that had Christ assumed to be the earthly king of 
 the Jews He would have been accepted, and, as such, would 
 have ruled the land of His fathers -nd, by His word, a new 
 order of things would l:ave come about: Miracle would 
 have followed miracle, Roman armies would have been 
 pushed into the sea by an invisible hand; every leper in 
 the broad land would have leaped with joy over a miracu- 
 lous cure; every poverty-stricken Jew would have had 
 plenty and to spare : but it did not so please God, and, at 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 93 
 
 His horrible death, the Church of Jesus Christ, that stood 
 about the foot of the cross, was John the beloved and a few 
 women, — that's all. 
 
 The Christian church must learn the lesson of patience. 
 It has undertaken in times past to subdue the world — 
 sometimes by the sword, the gallows, the whipping post, 
 the pillory, the stocks, statutes written in blood, persecution, 
 withdrawal into monasteries and shutting out the world 
 while praying and fasting, long pilgrimages and horrible 
 penances ; but God would not so have it. 
 
 Through all this tribulation the Christian church has 
 come purified into a new life — a life that is trying to save 
 the world by teaching that individual character must lie 
 at the basis of national and municipal character. 
 
 Non-Christian philanthropy is largely inefficient. That 
 is so because it is spasmodic. I saw the other day that the 
 wonderful (wonderful while it lasted) "slumming cam- 
 paign" set on foot by certain fashionable elements in our 
 great cities was rapidly losing its force, and that the enter- 
 prise was falling back again into the hands of the faithful 
 Christian workers who had done it for years before this 
 world-heralded project was started. Christian influence 
 and work is all-pervasive. The world complains, and 
 largely so because it does not see this work. Much Chris- 
 tian work is done — and done purposely — in secret, with no 
 purpose and no desire for notoriety. Great public bene- 
 factions and efforts for the amelioration of men, if in all 
 cases not in the hands of professed Christians, are yet 
 inspired by Christian teaching. A Christian mother, long 
 
94 SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 since dead, is often back behind the scenes, when some 
 great public benefactor startles the community with some 
 good and generous deed. 
 
 The church does not do all she may do, but she is and 
 will remain the greatest force in settling the practical 
 problems of the day. Ask the associated charities of the 
 city whence comes their money and help. Why one 
 church, in our city, — a small churcn not on one of our 
 great thoroughfares — gave more money last year to the 
 poor and the needy than all the lodges of Masons and Odd- 
 fellows in this city combined, and yet this one virtue of 
 charity is the special pride of these orders. 
 
 The churches are often unwise in their expenditures and 
 in their work, and there are many totally useless churches 
 whose Christianity is as dead as a stone. There is money 
 enough spent for fancy music in four or five of our churches 
 to put a Sunday school and a church in every Godless 
 neighborhood in our county, — which I happen to know 
 is one of the most church forsaken counties — outside of 
 Detroit — in the United States. 
 
 We send dollars by the thousands to foreign lands, and 
 yet almost within sound of the chimes of city churches are 
 whole townships in this county without a Sunday school, 
 and not in them a man who could lead one in prayer. 
 
 The church is a human instrument and, so, fallible. It 
 has not reached the height of its efficiency, but I hope it 
 will never get away from its first duty, — to preach Christ 
 crucified and the individual soul's relation to its Creator, for 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 95 
 
 when it does do this it is in a fair way of practicing the old 
 experiment of trying to uproot the tree by snufhng at its 
 blossoms. 
 
 Does the church shrink from contact with practical 
 life? It does, to a degree. It does not to the extent com- 
 monly supposed. It strikes at evil, but not in man's way — 
 in God's. 
 
NEWSPAPER ETIQUETTE. 
 
 WRITTEN IN BOSTON, TO BE DELIVERED A T THE AN- 
 NUAL BANQUET OF THE MICHIGAN PRESS ASSOCIA- 
 TION, IN HOTEL CADILLAC, DETROIT, FEB., iSgj, 
 AND READ BEFORE THA T BODY. 
 
 Gentlemen of the Michigan Press Association : — 
 
 "Newspaper Etiquette" requires of me at this time that 
 I prepare for you a paper to be read at your Tuesday after- 
 noon meeting. I had expected to be present with you and 
 deliver these words in person, but the whirligig of time has 
 bobbed around so unaccountably of late that, while fully 
 anticipating meeting with you, I am in Boston, and cannot 
 do so. 
 
 Were I a more distinguished citizen than I am I would 
 say nothing by way of excuse, for it is the privilege of 
 eminent people to give no reason for their actions, but, 
 being of little account myself, I must say something or 
 forever be accused of an unpardonable discourtesy to 
 brethren of the craft. 
 
 What I shall say must take the place of what I ought to 
 say on the subjects, "Newspaper Etiquette" and "The 
 Benefits of Newspaper Advertising," both of which sub- 
 jects have been assigned me. Whether I can treat the two 
 subjects in one paper remains to be seen. My grandfather, 
 
 96 
 
SPEAGUE'S SPEECHES. 97 
 
 so tradition says, could write with both hands at one time 
 and on two distinct subjects, his hands moving in opposite 
 directions, his eyes closed and his feet in repose. 
 
 I have always prided myself on having inherited some 
 of his freak characteristics, and as not the least important 
 of these, — the power of writing in such a way that the most 
 expert critics could not identify the subject or classify the 
 idea. 
 
 This happy faculty, not possessed by many outside of the 
 newspaper fraternity, will permit me to present my paper 
 on "Newspaper Etiquette" and respond to the toast "The 
 Benefits of Newspaper Advertising," at one and the same 
 time. 
 
 I reached Boston via the Michigan Central lines, Friday 
 afternoon. I deem it nothing but the commonest kind of 
 common "newspaper etiquette" to acknowledge the fact 
 that I took this route to Boston, as we, the most of us at 
 least, are indebted to the Michigan Central for the privilege 
 of being here to-night. I deem it also an act of common 
 "newspaper etiquette" to say that the farther east one goes 
 the larger become the holes in the table cloths and the more 
 impudent the waiters in the dining cars. 
 
 Almost any one, not riding on a pass, in a Wagner coach 
 east of the Alleghanies, would testify that Wagner wrote 
 the Gotterdamerung. Never until newspaper men are 
 treated with proper consideration will these Wagnerian 
 abuses be righted. 
 
 But I must hurry on to my subject, for I have only 
 
98 SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 reached Boston, and, as I found this morning on reading 
 the Boston Herald, I am yet a long ways off from news- 
 paper etiquette. 
 
 I had almost forgotten to request that this response of 
 mine be read by a good reader. I do not much care who 
 reads it, excepting J. E. Beal and W. J. Hunsaker. There 
 is a sort of a Dr. Chase's Receipt Book tone to Beal's voice 
 that I do not want injected into my remarks. Hunsaker 
 won a tidy at a pedro party at my house a few weeks ago, 
 and I am quite sure he could not forbear closing some of 
 my most effective periods with "This has been a great year 
 for the Journal." Indeed, when I come to think about it, 
 this year has been a great year for us all. We never had 
 such great deficits, never worked at such a great disadvan- 
 tage; in fact, never made such failures where heretofore 
 we have succeeded as in the year just passed. I don't want 
 the able and popular author of this now famous saying to 
 get an opportunity to insert any such ambiguities into my 
 speech. 
 
 As I was saying, I reached Boston and had soon got on 
 the outside of a four dollar and thirty-five cent a la carte 
 dinner at "Young's," as a necessary penalty for which my 
 wife and I have since Friday been living on toast and eggs. 
 We hope to even up or rather down to a fair average price, 
 about next Wednesday, at which time we shall have another 
 meal. 
 
 "Newspaper etiquette" was beautifully exemplified yes- 
 terday when the advertising manager of the "Youth's Com- 
 panion" sent up his card, and a half hour later we were 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 99 
 
 riding in a crowded car, our friend swinging his arm, like 
 the hand of a dial, now to one point of the compass, now to 
 the other, advertising, as was his business, to the whole 
 crowd that we were rural visitors, and for the life of me I 
 couldn't look intelligent, for I felt like a bridegroom from 
 Yapville. Don't, I beg of you, beloved brethren, insist on 
 identifying every blamed thing you speak of when showing 
 your visitors the sights. If I can't see a ten-story building 
 without having to sight along the arm and index finger 
 of a long drawn out, though friendly, vade mecum, I will 
 try to stumble along through to life's end without having 
 seen it. And is there anything that more aggravates a 
 man who has been married twelve years, and has had four 
 children and forty-three changes of servant girls, than to 
 be taken for a bridegroom just picked? 
 
 I beg of you, too, don't wear a silk hat and new kid 
 gloves when you come east. Your wife may insist upon 
 it, but I give you a pointer: You will do more business 
 and eat oftener if you go dressed like yourself with just a 
 suspicion of home smut on your collar and a man's hat 
 on your head. 
 
 The Youth's Companion building is a wonderful monu- 
 ment of a wonderful success. I was led to exclaim, as we 
 approached the massive five-story pile, what do you do 
 inside that great building besides publish the Youth's Com- 
 panion? Your paper is no bigger than some of our Mich- 
 igan country weeklies, that are edited, printed and pub- 
 lished in the room at the head of the stairs in the only 
 two-story building in town. 
 
 "Nothing," came the reply. 
 
loo SFE AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 "Seems to me it takes an all-fired lot of room to do 
 nothing in," said I. 
 
 "A great many have made that remark," said he. Then 
 that bridegroom feeling began to set in again, 
 
 Mr. Ford, who is now an old man, is the general-in-chief 
 of this great establishment. "Perry Mason & Co.," pub- 
 lishers of the Youth's Companion, is a fiction. Mr. Ford 
 bought out the original owner many years ago, I am told. 
 Then mail came addressed to the original owner and to the 
 new owner, and there was a general mix up. So the name 
 "Perry Mason & Co." was invented in order that all the 
 mail might come to one name. This very lucid explana- 
 tion was obtained by me first-hand and is reliable. I 
 learn that the immense success of the Youth's Companion 
 is owing to the fact that throughout its history there have 
 been no side issues to divide the interest of the publishers. 
 The concern publishes nothing but the Youth's Com- 
 panion. Mr. Ford says no man can make the greatest 
 success of anything whose interest is divided. 
 
 I pray you gentlemen who are trying at one and the 
 same time to publish papers and to support your families, 
 to remember this. If you want to succeed in either line, 
 give up the other, 
 
 I was particularly struck by several things I noticed in 
 the home of this prosperous paper. First, the absolute 
 cleanliness everywhere from the engine room to the roof. 
 The men who stood at the cases were to my somewhat 
 distorted vision scrupulously clean. Not a scrap of paper 
 lay on the floor. Not a thing out of place. The presses — 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. xoi 
 
 a score in number, all giant affairs, arranged in two im- 
 posing rows, would fire the heart of a true craftsman with 
 the enthusiasm of battle. Then the superhuman monster 
 that takes the printed sheets, collects them in proper order, 
 folds them, covers and stitches them and delivers them 
 folded to the mailer — a greedy, ambitious, beautiful beast 
 that has driven from the building a room full of bright- 
 eyed, busy girls, who used to run those half a hundred 
 stitching machines that stand there in a row silent in that 
 place forever — that has emptied those long rows of chairs, 
 pushed under so many tables, where sat the scores of young 
 girls whose expert fingers caught up and folded in an 
 incredibly short time the more than half a million copies 
 a week of this great weekly. 
 
 "What is to become of these people," I exclaimed, "that 
 we are fast driving out of our factories?" 
 
 "It's brain that tells, now," was my only answer. 
 
 "For three years we have been working to perfect this 
 great machine, and we have it now. It's quicker, cheaper, 
 cleanlier, better than the old way. We shall soon have a 
 pair of them." 
 
 In fact, duplicate machinery is the rule. Duplicate pairs 
 of boilers, duplicate engines, duplicate presses, — a fortune 
 spent in guarding against the slightest accident that might 
 delay the issuing of this great American paper. The 
 Ladies' Home Journal, a monthly, goes to press six weeks 
 in advance of its date of issue to get its three-fourths of a 
 million papers into the hands of its readers. The Youth's 
 Companion must meet the demand of a half million or more 
 
102 SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 once every week. This paper takes no questionable adver- 
 tising; indeed, no advertising matter under the head of 
 patent nostrums and such like ; makes no contracts to give 
 special positions, — I know this by experience — and is very 
 particular in the matter of black-face display. It built its 
 circulation largely in the good old-fashioned way of giving 
 premiums, and more lately by extensive advertising at 
 certain seasons. Fifteen thousand additional copies of the 
 Thanksgiving number have just now been run off to supply 
 the demand made by 15,000 new subscribers more than 
 was counted on as coming from a certain line of advertising 
 recently done. At this — the dull — season about 500 sub- 
 scriptions a day are received. 
 
 I was greatly interested in the premium department, 
 which occupies a whole floor, and is like to an immense 
 store in itself. The aim is to give for one new subscriber 
 who pays $1.75 a premium that costs 50 cents. I was 
 shown a handsome two-jeweled nickel watch, guaranteed 
 for three years, that is given for one new name and 50 
 cents, indicating that the cost price of the watch to the 
 company is $1.00. My friend tells me that by paying cash 
 and buying in immense quantities in otherwise dull seasons 
 the paper manages to get its goods at ridiculously low 
 prices. 
 
 I also visited on this same day the largest advertising 
 agency in New England, and the oldest in the country, and 
 was shown a wonderful system of records. I can't take 
 the time to explain, but I now know how it is the country 
 weekly asks $10.00 for space and gets 82 cents. 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 103 
 
 I have the secret. I got it when the manager's back was 
 turned, and by the aid of a very ambitious and interesting 
 little lady assistant in the office. 
 
 But, gentlemen of the Michigan Press Association, I di- 
 gress, and I imagine you are feeling much as the old 
 Boston lady did who died and went to heaven. Some one 
 asked her how she liked heaven. "Well, it's not Boston." 
 
 So you may say all this is well enough, but it isn't 
 "newspaper etiquette." Well, so it isn't, but I have at least 
 exemplified a kind of etiquette not very common nowadays ; 
 I have given an excuse for my absence, and have done 
 what I could, writing at a crowded table in a hotel office, 
 somewhat weary and ill at ease from staying up late o' 
 nights and eating Limburger cheese. 
 
THE DEAD DEBTOR. 
 
 Horace somewhere says : 
 
 We shall not all die. 
 
 In other words, I suppose, 
 
 His debts go marching on. 
 
 Did you ever notice what a Hvely stir there always is 
 among a man's creditors the moment he dies? Every debt, 
 young and old, is at the wake. Old debts come hobbling 
 in that ought to be ashamed of being alive, demanding a 
 front seat and shuffling aside the younger mourners. 
 
 Is it possible a dead debtor is a more accommodating 
 one than a live one? Sometimes. I have waited years 
 to collect of some hide-bound old debt conjurer, and finally 
 got satisfaction only by the route of the probate court. 
 And how delightful is the sensation when one, after years 
 of battling with a live debtor, is turned suddenly into the 
 rich pastures of an estate with no one to hinder or make 
 afraid. No wonder all the old cripples in the debt museum 
 leap up with new life. And what an immense vitality a 
 man's debts do possess. Outlive them? It can't be done. 
 An old debt may outlaw ; may become a carbuncle on the 
 face of decent society; may be shunned, ridiculed and 
 hated ; but the old tattered note, with its faded ink and gov- 
 ernment stamp and plastered back, will limp down the 
 avenues of time and meet us at the end. It would seem 
 
 104 
 
SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 105 
 
 to have as many lives as a cat, and like a cat, no matter 
 how hard or far it is dropped, it will light on its feet, and 
 come up smiling on the next occasion. Death does not 
 end all. The "I promise" is a living, breathing thing, and 
 demands fulfilment, when the hand that held the pen is 
 pQwerless to fulfil. The spirit and the purpose of the man 
 lires, and these the law attempts to carry out. Wise law I 
 Beneficent law! Better, indeed, than the man himself, 
 o^ten! You make us brave to meet the dead debtor. No 
 niore promises to break ; no more savage encounters ; no 
 more weary waiting on door steps; no more hunting in 
 tiie byways and hedges, to come back, time and again, tired 
 ajid discouraged. 
 
 The law opens the door, and says what the live debtor 
 promised and failed to perform, the law will see that the 
 dbad debtor fulfils. First protecting the widow and chil- 
 aien, it tenderly cares for "the man with the bill," and, for 
 tljat, all honor to the law, and thanks to a kind Providence, 
 vjio has forever made it possible for the dead debtor to be 
 nore civil, in many cases, than the live one, and easier to 
 hkndle. 
 
AROUND OUR CHAPTER FIRE. 
 
 AN EVENING IN THE COLLEGE FRATERNITY 
 ''CHAPTER HOUSE." 
 
 Our chapter fire is not always bright. Perhaps we shculd 
 not always expect the full, even glow. Discord and strife 
 will creep in. To-night the flames flicker and cast ghastly 
 shadows on the wall. Our fuel is poor; it sputters md 
 sizzles on the hearth like angry demons. We poke it, £nd 
 turn it, and hover about it, but still the cold and the wind 
 creep in. We are not so merry and confident to-nig'ht. 
 There is a lack of sympathy and that usual freedom of 
 intercourse. We half suspect ourselves and our brotlers 
 of disloyalty. There is no direct evidence of treason, )ut 
 there is an indefinable something in the atmosphere hat 
 chills us to the marrow. Our fuel, perhaps, is not veil- 
 seasoned, or is rotten at the core. We are inclined to sek 
 for the blame elsewhere than in ourselves, and insteac of 
 falling heartily to work to find better fuel we satisfy cur- 
 selves by piling on more of the same sort, in the false bdief 
 that it is more fuel that we want. We try a song, bvt it 
 sounds so weird and blends so inharmoniously with ;he 
 whistle of the wind that we do not repeat the attempt. 31d 
 Tab wanders about from place to place in search of a wrm 
 spot on which to take her ease, and the passerby huries 
 on happy in the prospect of a brighter fire at home. To 
 
 io6 
 
SFRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 107 
 
 bid him enter and partake of our miserable hospitality is 
 to meet with a pitying smile and an assurance that there is 
 brighter cheer elsewhere. 
 
 This can only result in added discomfort, and as, one by 
 one, the tiny flames, hopeful at first, flicker and die out we 
 fall into bitter reproachings. Then some of us put on our 
 great coats, pull our caps over our ears, and, with scarce 
 a regret or a word of parting, leave the chapter fire and 
 push out into the night to seek warmth and shelter else- 
 where. We who remain make a brief eflfort to fan the 
 dying embers to a blaze; we pledge again our friendship 
 and say we will stay as long as there remains a spark of 
 light on our chapter hearth. No song or laughter rises 
 above the gloom; no tales are told of conquest or fierce 
 struggle to win laurels with which to crown the image of 
 our patron god frowning down upon us now from his place 
 above the mantel; no plans are laid for future victories; 
 but our feverish fancy is busy with scornful faces at the 
 windows and derisiye laughter. Perhaps we even hear 
 amid these cruel voices those that once, 'mid brighter 
 scenes, joined with ours about the chapter fire. Why 
 longer shall we remain, for see, has not the chapter fire 
 gone out? 
 
 And then there comes a weird, fierce gust; the door 
 bursts open, our single spark springs into a flame and 
 catches, and in the open door stands one with outstretched 
 arms and glowing face, who years before was wont to sit 
 before our chapter fire, and has now returned from distant 
 lands to visit once again the scenes of earlier years. We 
 
io8 SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 spring to welcome him. We grasp him by the hand and 
 his warm grip sends the blood again coursing through our 
 veins. We take his hat and cane and help him to the seat 
 reserved for honored guests. Our miserable surroundings 
 are at once forgotten and scarcely do we notice in the joy 
 at sight of this, an elder brother, that the flame has kindled 
 into life. Old Tab has already curled herself upon the 
 hearth preparing for a comfortable night. Again we draw 
 the circle 'round our chapter fire. Our guest appears 
 scarcely to notice how few our numbers and how feeble the 
 blaze. It is comfort and beauty to him, dear old fellow, 
 for, if not bright, it is the chapter fire ; and is it not brighter 
 and warmer than the storm and darkness without? His 
 mind is filled with warm memories and his heart with 
 kindly emotion. His hair is white and his brow furrowed, 
 but beneath the crust of winter is the verdure of spring. 
 He is talkative to-night, and we join in hearty laughter at 
 the recital of some chapter jest, and then again we sit silent 
 and responsive as with tremulous tones he recalls another 
 night when the chapter fire ran low. We feel the hot blood 
 leap and the nerves tighten as with a burst of enthusiasm 
 he recalls a well planned, bravely executed fight which 
 ended in new fuel for our chapter fire, new voices in our 
 songs and new friendships in our lives. But our chapter 
 fire ! How it crackles and leaps ! How every nerve tingles 
 with the warmth and the glow ! We sing : 
 
 "From scenes of life's conflicts and trials we turn." 
 That song reminds us of other days. Our fire is so well 
 going now anything will sparkle and burn in it. We shall 
 look better to our fuel hereafter. 
 
FOUR YEARS AND MORE HAVE GONE. 
 
 WRITTEM IN i88s. FOUR YEARS AFTER LEA VING 
 COLLEGE. 
 
 Four years and more have gone; 
 
 And yet it seems to me but yester-eve 
 
 We lay on verdant crown of *"sugar-Ioaf" 
 
 And listened to the dying notes of day, 
 
 And watched with quiet joy the full-orb'd sun descend 
 
 And twilight spread its mantle o'er the sleepy town 
 
 That lay beneath embowered in the trees. 
 
 Four years and more have gone; 
 
 And yet we seem to linger still, we three, 
 
 Upon the summit of that storied mound. 
 
 The light has faded from the western sky, 
 
 And 'round our grassy couch the misty night descends 
 
 That brings with fading forms of life its silence sweet, 
 
 As benediction to the passing day. 
 
 Four years and more have gone; 
 
 And still we seem to see that quiet scene 
 
 From "sugar-loaf's" green top — the starry night — 
 
 The misty outline of the Rac-co-on — 
 
 The faint, uncertain lights that glimmer thro' the trees 
 
 To guide belated wanderers 'long the grass-grown streets 
 
 And sparkle cheer from Granville's peaceful homes. 
 
 Four years and more have gone; 
 
 And still we seem to gaze with quiet joy 
 
 On old familiar scenes — and there above 
 
 The universal canopy of leaves. 
 
 On yonder neighb'ring hill-top 'gainst the northern sky, 
 
 An hundred lights from college halls, where bends the pale 
 
 And plodding student o'er his nightly task. 
 
 * A hill-top near the college. 109 
 
no SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 Four years and more have gone, 
 
 Since we lay dreaming on that lofty couch. 
 
 Hearts ne'er the chords of faith and friendship struck 
 
 To clearer tones than midst these scenes did ours. 
 
 Our hopes for future years we told without reserve, 
 
 The loves and hates of each were to the others known. 
 
 And joys and sorrows were a common lot. 
 
 Four years and more have gone, 
 
 Since last we looked into the star-lit sky 
 
 And read our futures there — no thought of books 
 
 Nor morrow's calls to face professors grave; 
 
 For what within us burned was not in Physics found. 
 
 Nor in the page of Homer, nor in Cicero, 
 
 Nor in the science of the sun and stars. 
 
 Four years and more have gone. 
 
 Since there with boyish zeal we stirred the fires 
 
 Of restless longing for the living foe 
 
 And battles with the world of men and things. 
 
 For dull-eyed, pale-faced men, the light of midnight oil; 
 
 For us, the kindly freedom of unfettered night 
 
 To let ambition soar to yonder skies. 
 
 Four years and more have gone. 
 
 Since, bound by ties of sympathy and love, 
 
 — The current of respect ne'er crossed by strife — 
 
 We planned and built our castles tall and fair, 
 
 And felt already in our grasp expected fame. 
 
 Then laughed to feel ambition quite annihilate 
 
 The intervening years, as in a dream. 
 
 Four years and more have gone. 
 
 Since there in solemn night, our fortunes cast. 
 
 We talked of homes our thrifty hands should raise. 
 
 Enriched with vintage of a constant love; 
 
 And how our princely incomes should be daily spent 
 
 In travel, books, and just perhaps a little, too. 
 
 In sport, with modicum of charity. 
 
SFHAGUE'S SPEECHES. iii 
 
 Four years and more have gone, 
 
 Since, poor in purse yet rich in heart, we said, — 
 
 Should poverty the hand of either grasp 
 
 Or chance deny the wealth of woman's love. 
 
 The other two would draw before the cheerful fire 
 
 The easy rocker for an honored guest, and fill 
 
 His soul with wine of self-forgetfulness. 
 
 Four years and more have gone. 
 
 How many changes mark the flight of time! 
 
 The three who there but yester-eve looked out 
 
 On distant futures and the stars, are gone — 
 
 Their couch upon the hill by other dreamers filled. 
 
 On distant fields they fight the fight with living foes 
 
 And build the homes their young ambitions reared. 
 
 Four years and more have gone. 
 
 The sun still sets beyond the western hill. 
 
 The self same shadows of the evening fall. 
 
 The self same misty line — the Rac-co-on; 
 
 So in our hearts the self same love of yesterday, 
 
 So in our distant homes the sweet and welcome thought 
 
 That days and years, but nothing more, have gone. 
 
OUR FRIENDS,-THE ENEMY. 
 
 DELIVERED AT A BANQUET AT THE HOTEL VICTORY, 
 
 PUT-IN-BAY, OHIO, AT I HE CLOSE OF THE FIRST 
 
 NATIONAL CONVENTION OF CREDIT MEN. 
 
 [Note. — The toastmaster, in introducing the speaker, said that 
 the credit-men had had some difficulty in choosing where to hold 
 the next convention; that the Kansas City delegates had made their 
 city out as so near Heaven that the choice had finally seemed to 
 settle down as being between Heaven and Detroit] 
 
 Mr. Toastmaster, Gentlemen and Ladies : — Had I been at 
 the convention during the afternoon of the last day, when 
 you decided upon a place for holding your next convention, 
 you would not have decided to go to heaven, but you would 
 have gone to — Detroit. Yesterday I left the convention at 
 noon, bought a pair of white kid gloves and a clean collar, 
 took the 3 o'clock train for Detroit, and while you were en- 
 joying the sights and music at the Casino, I was standing 
 at the hymeneal altar giving away in marriage one of De- 
 troit's prettiest young women. As we were driving home 
 after the ceremony my wife looked up at me out of a great 
 mass of "frills and fixin's" and in her own sweet way, which 
 no one outside of myself is permitted to know, said, "And 
 to-morrow night at this time you will be giving yourself 
 away." At this point the rattle of the carriage prevented 
 further conversation. My wife has lived with me and my 
 two children so long she has got "smart," and when we 
 reached home I told her so. 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 113 
 
 Whether or not I succeed in giving myself away to-night 
 I shall ever feel a pride in having been honored with a place 
 on the program of the first National Convention of Credit 
 Men now being brought to a close on the beautiful island, 
 famous for its historic surroundings, and in this great hotel, 
 which in its very name symbolizes the achievements of this 
 Convention. 
 
 Let me say, gentlemen, as one who for years — though not 
 a credit man — has labored for reform in collection and 
 credit methods, that I hail this movement as the harbinger 
 of a new day; not indeed a millennium of credits, for that I 
 shall never see this side the eternal city, but as a day the 
 roseate tints of whose morning are seen in the co-operation 
 and good fellowship of credit managers, so long, if not at 
 variance, at least strangers and indifferent to one another's 
 welfare. 
 
 As an editor only and therefore debarred from your mem- 
 bership, I ask the privilege of extending across the line you 
 have drawn, beyond which my feet must not pass, the hand 
 of fellowship and congratulations, and with it to pledge you 
 that my pen shall not be idle nor my voice silent in behalf 
 of better men, better methods, and better laws, and what- 
 ever concerns your best interests. 
 
 Tho' outside the citadel, your watchman upon the wall, 
 shall ever bear to you the tidings that I am fighting your 
 battles under your flag and zealous for your ultimate 
 triumph over incompetency and iniquity in mercantile life. 
 Heaven speed the day of renewed business confidence that 
 shall usher in a great revival of commercial honesty and fair 
 
114 SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 dealing — a revival that our country needs as much as it 
 needs a baptism of purity and common sense in our political 
 life, and God knows how much it needs that. 
 
 However, I promised not to be serious. That urbane 
 Woolson Spice man* wrote me, "You know these credit 
 men are likely to be very dry." "What?" I said, "and that, 
 too, in Toledo?" "Bring your next Convention to Detroit 
 and I will promise you a long wet spell." I promised not 
 to be dry, but coming across the lake this morning, and 
 what a glorious morning it was, and what a glorious old 
 lake it is ! No wonder the British fought to keep it ! — com- 
 ing across the lake this morning, I say, my friends did their 
 best to wet my speech, and my lawyer friends who just hap- 
 pened, you know, to be here at this Convention, have evi- 
 denced such an overwillingness to help me keep it wet since 
 we have reached the island that my sole anxiety for several 
 hours past has been to get rid of it before it got too damp 
 for good society. 
 
 I was troubled much about a subject for my toast. At 
 first I wrote the "pepper man" that not being a credit man 
 I would talk on the subject "From Another Standpoint," 
 and he could so word it in the program. The pepper fac- 
 tory wrote back, "Do so by all means." I asked my wife 
 (you see I think a great deal of my wife) if Mr. McMechcn 
 seemed over enthusiastic on my choice of a subject. She 
 thought a minute (something unusual for a woman to do) 
 and said, "Here is a story I just read that may help you an- 
 swer the question." "A lecturer approached a leading man 
 
 *B. G. McMechen, credit-man of the Woolson Spice Co., who 
 was chairman of the committee of arrangements. 
 
SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 115 
 
 of a certain village with the question, 'How would your 
 people like a lecture from me on Mt. Vesuvius?' 'Im- 
 mensely,' he replied, 'they would much rather you would 
 lecture on Mt. Vesuvius than in this village.' " 
 
 I forthwith wrote the ginger mill that I thought my sub- 
 ject a little misleading and that with his kind permission I 
 would toast, "Our Friends, the Enemy," which being a 
 somewhat inconsistent subject, meant nothing, and as I in- 
 tended to say nothing it would be exactly appropriate. And 
 yet, all sentences that appear inconsistent are not really so, 
 as in the following instance : A gentleman inquired of an 
 old white-haired fellow how he kept so hale and hearty. 
 "Easy enough," he replied, "I always drink whisky and vote 
 the Democratic ticket." "Ah, I see," said the other, "the 
 two pizens neutralize each other." 
 
 If I chose to talk credits I believe I could do so to the 
 queen's taste, for no man here, I am sure, has had so rich 
 and varied an experience in that line as I have had. Pardon 
 me if I give you my biography at this point. 
 
 At the age of 16 I was a lawyer's clerk and my business 
 was to make up lawyers' reports on the merchants of my 
 town for Dun and Bradstreet. That I did it well is evi- 
 denced by the fact that no merchant in my town ever failed 
 — to get all the goods he wanted while I was doing the 
 guessing. Then for four years I studied Greek and trigo- 
 nometry to prepare myself as a lawyer to better tell credit 
 men whom to trust. Then as a lawyer for eight years I 
 did free reporting in return for worthless collections, and I 
 was satisfied in the knowledge that the reports I gave were 
 
ii6 SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 as good as the collections I received. In the eight years I 
 made over two thousand mercantile reports, received $2.44 
 in money therefor, 223 postage stamps, twenty-three of 
 which stuck so close to the paper I could not use them, 
 three votes of thanks from inexperienced credit men who 
 had not learned their business, and so many "kicks" that I 
 early lost the count. After all my education in college 
 Greek, not a single request was made for a report in that 
 language. My reports were always scholarly, but they 
 were no good. The business was delightful, but I had to 
 quit it; the life was too rapid and meals were not frequent 
 enough. So with an aching desire to reform the agencies I 
 added to my immense legal practice an agency department, 
 and after a little while I was experiencing the joy of asking 
 my fellow lawyers for free reports, the reading of which 
 reports and the tall lying I had to do in so transcribing them 
 as to make them look to my subscribers like mercantile 
 reports, and the wear and tear on my conscience incident to 
 the nefarious business of robbing my fellow lawyer of his 
 time and his postage with the promise that somehow, some- 
 where, perhaps now, perhaps in eternity, he or his heirs 
 (more likely his assigns) would get an outlawed collection 
 in return for it, drove me into a decline. 
 
 I then became an editor with a holy ambition to reform 
 everybody. I was going to teach the lawyers that they were 
 born for better business, to teach the agencies to do busi- 
 ness on business principles and pay for what they got, and 
 to teach credit men to insist upon more and better service 
 and to pay for such service what it was worth. 
 
SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 117 
 
 These are not my only qualifications for talking credit. 
 
 I have granted credit and have been deceived, I have 
 asked credit as often as the best of you and have been re- 
 fused in more languages, perhaps, than are taught in the 
 schools. But the subject is growing personal and I turn in 
 another direction. 
 
 Legislation, of which there has been much talk at this 
 Convention, can do much, my friends, but "our friends, the 
 enemy" are not to be gotten rid of so easily. Solomon was 
 a very wise man and a great legislator, but he gave it as his 
 opinion, after conferring with his credit men and comparing 
 notes with the Queen of Sheba, that "sin sticks between 
 buyer and seller." It stuck then, it sticks to-day, it will con- 
 tinue to stick. Pardon me if I say that I take little stock in 
 that seraphic vision that some of our Convention speakers 
 have had when they tell us that they have seen the heavens 
 roll back as a scroll and the debtor and creditor lying down 
 together and a national association of credit men in the 
 midst thereof. I am neither a pessimist nor an optimist, but 
 I believe that so long as Almighty God allows the devil to 
 run loose up and down the earth there will be important 
 business on hand for the credit man and the lawyer, irre- 
 spective of and in spite of all we can do, whether as individ- 
 uals or as organizations. 
 
 I cannot but say that with a national association of credit 
 men on the one side, however dignified and able, and with 
 my friend Wolfstein, who runs the clothing store up the 
 street, and his wife and his wife's family on the other side, 
 
1 1 8 SPRA G UE'S SFEE CHES. 
 
 I shall continue to put up my money on Wolfstein et al. 
 Smooth-tongued credit men from New Orleans, with their 
 hospitable Mardi Gras manners, their palmetto voices, and 
 their lower Mississippi accents, all of which is indescrib- 
 ably pleasant to me; western credit men, with a courage 
 which, in the face of grass-hopper, drouth, cyclones and 
 Dolly Varden politics, seems to me a sublime proof of the 
 omnipotence of the Creator; eastern credit men with their 
 courtly manners, their Coney Island tastes and their store 
 clothes — these all may sit in sweet and holy converse 
 beneath the willows that snade the muddy banks of the 
 Maumee, almost in sight of the most beautiful city on the 
 continent — Detroit, the City of the Straits — and yet — and 
 yet — while this is going on Isaacstine is changing his sign, 
 Gilligan is paying back to his wife dot money he loaned 
 from her forty-two years ago when she was rich, O'Riley is 
 folding his tent like the Arab and silently stealing away. 
 
 Then here is to our friends, the enemy — the men who 
 give us employment, who sharpen our wits, who provide 
 the winds of adversity that, blowing upon us, strengthen 
 our business judgment and make us the clear-headed and 
 intelligent fellows we know we are. 
 
 I am a debtor myself, — a debtor out of jail. I made 
 everything I have by getting into debt. Debt may be hon- 
 orable, and let us see to it that while legislating against the 
 dishonest debtor we protect the honest one, and be sure that 
 the gun we load for the dishonest one may never have to be 
 loaded against ourselves. 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 119 
 
 Convene, organize, legislate, but in all your self-satisfac- 
 tion over organization, do not forget that organization itself 
 is valueless unless there goes with it the sympathy of our 
 hearts and the work of our hands, and in all our roseate 
 dreaming of the future let us never forget Gilligan's wife 
 and the money she loaned Gilligan forty-two years ago. 
 
THE LAW AND THE SCHOOLMASTER. 
 
 ABRIDGMENT OF AN ADDRESS DELIVERED IN THE 
 
 SUMMER OF i8g2 BEFORE A CONVENTION 
 
 OF TEACHERS. 
 
 The teachers among my audience will put me down at 
 once as ignorant of at least one-half of my subject. But if 
 any such will confess to a like ignorance as to the other 
 half, I shall feel that we can proceed on good terms, follow- 
 ing the example of certain learned judges when the address 
 to the Queen at the opening of the royal courts was under 
 consideration : One very eminent judge of appeals objected 
 to the phrase in the address, "Conscious as we are of our 
 own shortcomings — " "I am not conscious of my own 
 shortcomings," he said, "and if I were, I should not be so 
 foolish as to say so;" whereupon a learned lord justice 
 blandly observed, "Suppose we say, Conscious as we are of 
 each other's shortcomings." 
 
 What I know about teaching would probably form about 
 as interesting and instructive a disquisition as Greeley's 
 "What I Know About Farming," for I have never been a 
 teacher, in the sense in which I use the term. Yet I have 
 run up against several in my day, and have always come 
 away with a wholesome respect for them ; so that I am pre- 
 pared to say : 
 
 1 20 
 
SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 121 
 
 "Of all professions that this world has known, 
 From clowns and cobblers upwards to the throne; 
 From the grave architect of Greece and Rome 
 Down to the framer of a farthing broom — 
 The worst for care and undeserved abuse, 
 The first in real dignity and use 
 (If skilled to teach and diligent to rule), 
 Is the learned master of a little school." 
 
 Whether or not the teacher is any wiser or better for our 
 meeting, modesty forbids my inquiring. 
 
 I realize fully the opportunity I here have for evening old 
 scores with my early teachers, and I had at first thought of 
 saying some things more or less cruel ; but, on reflection, I 
 have concluded that, after all, mercy so sweetened justice in 
 all of the performances in the line of school tragedy, in 
 which I was a star actor, that any bitter feelings I might 
 once have had are swallowed up in the happy memory of 
 those days when I played jackstones with the girls at recess 
 on the back porch of a certain house in my native town, 
 which stands next door to a little frame building on whose 
 ground floor old "father Love" cobbled our fathers' and 
 grandfathers' soles, and on whose second floor a good 
 woman, whose memory is sacred to scores of men and 
 women now living, held her little school. How sweet was 
 her punishment, when, as once, I was compelled to sit under 
 her desk, and there to spend my time fishing from a crack 
 in the drawer over my head candy hearts, on which were 
 printed "For a good boy," "For a sweet child," which said 
 hearts were intended to be distributed to characters of that 
 sort on the following Friday, of which characters I very well 
 knew myself not to be one. And so for obvious reasons I 
 
122 SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES, 
 
 shall refer as tenderly as possible to the days of my school 
 life, and, firmly intrenched behind the books of the law and 
 the judges, content myself in the endeavor to teach teachers 
 what, perchance, they already know as to their rights and 
 obligations ; for it is not for a moment to be thought that 
 there is a teacher so poorly qualified for the performance of 
 his duties as not to know at least the general rules of law 
 that should govern his action. 
 
 The scope of this discussion shall not extend to criticisms 
 or suggestions as to methods of teaching, or to statements 
 of what I should do under this and that set of circumstances. 
 No one, not even the law itself, with its far-reaching power, 
 can fix in each case exactly the line of the teacher's duty or 
 his liability. 
 
 The law contents itself with laying down general princi- 
 ples, and applying these to each set of circumstances pre- 
 sented for its consideration. The law prescribes no method 
 of punishment, nor does it set fixed bounds to punishment, 
 so that the teacher and the pupil may know just when to 
 begin or when to stop. 
 
 You ask me, can I whip a boy for making faces at me 
 when my back is turned? I cannot answer that question. 
 No one but yourself can answer it. You know the circum- 
 stances, the cause, the motive, the effect on the discipline of 
 the school. You alone can answer it. Under certain cir- 
 cumstances the law would give its approval, and under cer- 
 tain other circumstances withhold it. 
 
 The law will content itself with saying, if, looking at 
 the circumstances as they existed, the punishment is reason- 
 able, it is lawful; if not reasonable, it is not lawful; and it 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 123 
 
 will wait, before passing its opinion for the hundred and one 
 facts that go to make up the surrounding conditions before 
 it answers the question. 
 
 So that you must not expect me to say under what par- 
 ticular circumstances you may legally whip or expel. But 
 I will attempt to lay down general rules, allowing you to 
 answer your own questions as to what to do under a given 
 set of circumstances. 
 
 I shall first consider the relation of teacher and pupil, and, 
 in considering this, shall best arrive at a conclusion as to 
 the rights and duties of the teacher. 
 
 The law gives to parents the custody, control and ser- 
 vices of their minor children. As to power of correction, 
 very ancient laws gave the father the power of life and death 
 over his children. The common law gives only a moderate 
 degree of authority, relaxing as the child grows older. The 
 father is liable to indictment for cruel punishment, if malic- 
 ious and permanently injurious, and may be found guilty of 
 manslaughter or murder. The presumption is that the pun- 
 ishment given is just and deserved and properly adminis- 
 tered, and courts refuse to interfere only when malice or 
 evil purpose on the part of the parent is shown, or, as is 
 coming more and more fully to be felt, where the common 
 welfare of the State is shown to suffer. In the former case 
 the parent is penaly or criminally responsible, and in the 
 latter case the State will interfere to regulate the conduct of 
 the parent or prescribe rules for the conduct of the child, it 
 being upon the latter ground that compulsory education 
 can be reasonably justified. 
 
124 SFHAGUE'S SPEECHES, 
 
 The law, in allowing this broad discretion and authority 
 to the parent, is wise, for the parental instinct, the affection 
 of man for his offspring, stands as a wall against the attack 
 of malice and cruelty; and when, as seldom, indeed, hap- 
 pens, the angry passions of the parent leap the barrier, the 
 consensus of outraged public feeling is only proof of the 
 deep-seated public sense of what is just and right. 
 
 The law further recognizes the right of the parent to dele- 
 gate his authority, or at least a portion of it, to others. 
 
 Parents, by placing their boy in school, tacitly, but none 
 the less directly and positively, agree that for certain limited 
 periods, their rights as parents are transferred to the 
 teacher and the State ; and the latter, on the other hand, are 
 bound to receive the trust, accept and fulfill the momentous 
 and solemn duties of the position. 
 
 Bound, I say ; and this responsibility cannot be shifted or 
 declined. 
 
 That boy or girl, whether white or black, rich or poor, 
 bright or dull, Protestant or Catholic, who, providing he 
 does not comport himself in a manner to injure the interests 
 of the school, who knocks at your door, must be adopted 
 into your family. 
 
 Men have applied to the courts to keep the black boy 
 from the white school ; but the courts dare not break the 
 spirit and reason of the Constitution, although it has been 
 said by learned courts that if separate schools for blacks and 
 whites be established, with equal facilities and advantages, 
 as good teachers, buildings, apparatus, course of study, etc., 
 they might help a little in the way of keeping up the war of 
 races. 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 125 
 
 But even here the courts are treading on dangerous 
 ground. 
 
 Understand me ; no teacher is compelled to take an inde- 
 cent youth, or a youth presenting himself in such a charac- 
 ter or condition as would tend to demoralize the school. 
 
 As stated, the teacher must accept duties dependent on 
 his position. The child has a right to demand it of the 
 teacher, and if refused, or if the right be abused or the duty 
 neglected, the child has recourse to the law in obtaining 
 adequate damages. 
 
 The question has arisen, is the teacher in this case liable 
 to the parent? I think not, although I can scarcely see the 
 force of the reasoning, which is that the education being for 
 the benefit of the child, he alone can claim the damages. 
 The more equitable view, it would seem, would be that the 
 parent, having given up the time and service of the child, 
 to which by nature and law he is entitled, and having parted 
 with his rights in consideration of the fulfillment, by "the 
 teacher, of his duties, is alike damaged, and should have like 
 recourse. 
 
 The question now arises as to the nature of the power 
 thus delegated. We have seen that the parent's right to 
 punish extends to the limit where malice and wicked pur- 
 pose begin ; and this by reason of the parental instinct and 
 aflfection for the child. The earlier authorities, as well as 
 some modern ones, make the authority of the teacher co-ex- 
 tensive with that of the parent. But such decisions evi- 
 dently go too far. Even as far back as Blackstone, we read 
 that "the teacher has such portion of the power of the 
 
126 SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 parent committed to his charge, viz., that of restraint and 
 correction, as may be necessary to answer the purpose for 
 which he was employed." Chitty says this power must be 
 temperately exercised, and no schoolmaster should feel him- 
 self at liberty to administer chastisement co-extensive with 
 a parent, howsoever the infant might appear to have de- 
 served it. Bishop says the authority of the teacher will 
 seldom quite equal the parental right. The Court says, in 
 Lander vs. Seaver, a Vermont case : The parent unques- 
 tionably is answerable only for malice and wicked motives 
 or an evil heart in punishing his child. This great, and to 
 some extent irresponsible, power of control and correction 
 is invested in the parent by nature and necessity. It springs 
 from the relation of parent and child. It is felt rather as a 
 duty than a power. This parental power is little liable to be 
 abused, for it is continually restrained by natural affection, 
 the tenderness which the parent feels for his offspring, an 
 affection ever on the alert, and acting rather by instinct 
 than by reason. 
 
 The schoolmaster has no such natural restraint. Hence 
 he may not be trusted with all a parent's authority, for he 
 does not act from the instinct of parental affection. He 
 should be guided and restrained by judgment and wise dis- 
 cretion, and hence is responsible for their reasonable exer- 
 cise. In an Iowa case the Court says : We do not think the 
 teacher had such right or authority, and we can see no 
 necessity for clothing him with such rights and arbitrary 
 power. So, all the later authorities have fallen into the 
 opinion that the relation is not identical, but analogous, and, 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 127 
 
 being less confidential, that the authority of the teacher is 
 only such as may be necessary to answer the purposes for 
 which he is employed. So, it has been held that the teacher 
 cannot compel the pupils to bring in stove wood at recess, 
 unless as a means of punishment, under such circumstances, 
 etc., as render this method of punishment reasonable, inas- 
 much as it has nothing to do with the object of his employ- 
 ment. 
 
 We may say, then, that the authority of the teacher is 
 quasi-parental, but not identical, in that the parental is 
 bounded only by malice and evil purpose, while that of the 
 teacher must in every case be limited by what is reasonable. 
 
 "The reasonable judgment of reasonable men" is the cri- 
 terion as to what is legal punishment. So beyond all else 
 the teacher must be a reasonable person. He may be able 
 to add six columns of figures in his sleep, or parse a sneeze ; 
 but if he lack judgment, he may throw his books to the 
 dogs. 
 
 As I read the decisions of judges and see how the word 
 "reasonable" is made to shoulder burdens, I wonder that it 
 is not ranked as the first desirable quality in a teacher. Per- 
 haps it is, but I imagine it is not so often sought after or in- 
 quired into when we hire a teacher, as is his knowledge of 
 how accurately he can spot the solution of some tricky prob- 
 lem. I believe the trickiest problem teachers have to solve 
 is that tow-headed boy, or freckle-faced girl, beside which 
 all the hideous nightmares of mathematics and gramniar, 
 sprung upon them by school examiners, are as dust in the 
 balance. So, above all, the law requires of the teacher to be 
 
128 SFRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 reasonable in his rules, and reasonable in enforcing obed- 
 ience to them. Had I the privilege and means of so doing, 
 I would write above the door post of every schoolhouse in 
 the land in great letters, so none could fail to read — In all 
 things be reasonable. 
 
 The teacher's supervision and control of the pupil extends 
 from the time the pupil leaves home to attend school till he 
 returns home from school. [Here follows citation of au- 
 thorities.] 
 
 The teacher has a right to make a rule and enforce it by 
 whipping, prohibiting the boys from swearing quarreling or 
 fighting on their way home from school, and before parental 
 authority over them has been resumed. 
 
 It is also pretty well decided that except where compul- 
 sory education is the rule, the teacher has no right to com- 
 pel the pupil to study certain branches where the pupil was 
 excused therefrom by his parent, and that if the teacher at- 
 tempts to force the pupil so to do, and the pupil refuses, 
 and the teacher inflicts punishment for the refusal, the 
 teacher may be guilty of assault and battery. The fact that 
 the school is a public one, in which studies are prescribed by 
 statute, does not vary the general rule as to the right of the 
 parent to direct the omission of a part of the prescribed 
 studies, except, perhaps, where, as stated, compulsory edu- 
 cation is the law of the State. 
 
 There is a species of conflict in which the pupil is gener- 
 ally a delighted spectator, and that is where the parent and 
 teacher stands hors de combat. The parent in most cases 
 has the boy on his side, and the teacher, be it said to his 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 129 
 
 credit, generally has the law on his. The parent, unmindful 
 or ignorant of the compact he has entered into in placing 
 his boy under the teacher's care, seeks ofttimes to exercise 
 the authority with which he has already parted, and in 
 response to the complaints of the lad, takes it upon himself 
 to chastize the teacher for too zealously, as he thinks, per- 
 forming his part of the agreement. 
 
 With the boy on one side and the parent on the other, the 
 teacher is led a pretty waltz. 
 
 It must have been a teacher who wrote 
 
 "Just Heaven! who knows the unremitting care 
 And deep solicitude that teachers share. 
 If such their fate, by thy divine control, 
 Oh, give them health and fortitude of soul, 
 Souls that disdain the murderous tongues of fame, 
 And strength to make the sturdiest of them tame; 
 Grant this, ye powers! to dominies distrest 
 Their sharp-tailed hickories will do the rest." 
 
 The boy complains that he can't learn geography; and 
 the father, whose vision is bounded by the township in 
 which he lives, sees no use in it himself, and so informs the 
 teacher, with the request that Johnnie may not be com- 
 pelled to study it. What course shall the teacher take? 
 Under the common law, and aside from state laws compell- 
 ing school attendance, the reasonable requests of the parent 
 should and must be complied with ; but the requests must 
 be reasonable. That Johnnie be allowed to study aloud, or 
 whittle during school hours, will not be such requests. In 
 the case of the geography hater, the courts hold the request 
 
I30 SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 of the parent reasonable, and that the teacher having' ex- 
 pelled the boy for refusing to study it, the teacher is liable 
 in an action for damages. 
 
 It is the boy's duty, generally speaking, to return home 
 after school. If he does not do so, but in violation of a 
 school rule (and such a rule would be reasonable), loiters 
 about the school house out of love for it or the teacher, or 
 for any other unreasonable cause, and thereby encourages 
 the habit in others, the teacher may rightly punish him after 
 other methods have failed. 
 
 The teacher has the right to expel only for a reasonable 
 cause. The power of expulsion is generally lodged in the 
 hands of the school directors or other committee in charge 
 of the school, and the teacher generally has power only to 
 suspend the pupil until the matter can be brought to the 
 attention of such superior body. Some States, and among 
 them Ohio, regulate this by statute, and for a wrongful ex- 
 pulsion the teacher is liable to the child, and according to 
 Ohio statutes, I believe, the teacher and local directors of 
 the sub-district are hable to the parent for damages. There 
 are cases for which the usual methods of punishment are in- 
 adequate. In general, no doubt, the teacher should report 
 a case of this kind to the proper board for its action — if no 
 delay will necessarily result from that course prejudicial to 
 the best interests of the school. But the conduct of the pupiJ 
 may be such that his presence for a day or an hour may 
 be disastrous to the discipline of the school or the morals 
 of other pupils. In such case it seems absolutely neces- 
 sary to the welfare of the school that the teacher should 
 
SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 131 
 
 have the power to suspend the offender at once from the 
 privilege of the school — and he must necessarily decide for 
 himself whether the case requires the remedy. He should 
 then promptly report his action to the board. It will be 
 seldom that the teacher in charge of the school will be 
 compelled to exercise this power, because usually, he can 
 readily communicate with the district board and have direc- 
 tion and orders. 
 
 We conclude, therefore, that the teacher has, in a proper 
 case, the inherent power to suspend a pupil from the priv- 
 ileges of the school, unless he has been deprived of the 
 power by legislation or the afhrmative action of the board. 
 In some States by statute, I understand, the expulsion may 
 not extend beyond the term, and the teacher's power ex- 
 tends only to temporary expulsion or until such time as 
 the proper board may act, but the teacher would doubtless 
 be held liable for an unreasonable exercise of this power. 
 
 It is settled in law that the teacher may make reasonable 
 rules to require obedience, even to the extent of expulsion. 
 The question arises, what are reasonable rules? [Here fol- 
 low quotations from numerous decisions.] 
 
 This brings us to that subject, dear to every teacher's 
 heart, corporal punishment. 
 
 School codes of the United States are generally silent 
 on this question, but numerous judicial decisions uphold 
 the teacher's right to use corporal punishment. There is 
 no doubt but that the law gives the teacher the privilege 
 of applying the rod. 
 
 Under the old Roman law the father was privileged to 
 kill or abandon his young child. 1900 years have taught 
 
132 SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES, 
 
 us better than that, and we are now only allowed to wear 
 out his pants, to the amusement of the school, the souring 
 and spoiling of the teacher's day and temper, and the hard- 
 ening of the boy's disposition, and the injury of some am- 
 bitious young apple tree. We are perhaps a little more 
 civilized than when Byron wrote, 
 
 "Oh, ye who teach the ingenious youth of nations, 
 Holland, France, England, Germany and Spain, 
 I pray ye flog them upon all occasions; 
 It mends their morals, never mind the pain." 
 
 To my disappointment I have been unable to find a single 
 court of last resort with backbone and humanity enough to 
 decide against corporal punishment. One judge, a mem- 
 ber of the Indiana Supreme Court (I can see the kind- 
 hearted old gentleman, and he doubtless has a family of 
 girls), is down in the Indiana reports as saying that "the 
 weight of reason and humanity is against such a method 
 of punishment, but that the public still clamor for this relic 
 of barbarity in the common schools, and the courts must 
 yield to the demand.'' Yes, we have all seen the clamor 
 for it, but this clamor for it has been pretty well confined 
 to one class. The boys and girls who make up the vast 
 majority of this same public never seem to hurt themselves 
 clamoring for it. But this method of punishment will go, 
 just as sure as capital punishment, the guillotine and the 
 stocks are passing into history. The forests of our land 
 are far too rapidly disappearing, The young life has been 
 strangled in many a sprightly young sapling to furnish 
 humiliation and a warm seat for a restless boy, amusement 
 
SFRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 133 
 
 for his comrades, and a tired body and heartache for the 
 good teacher. When I glance at the premature old age 
 of the appletrees in my father's yard, I ask myself if it paid 
 to spoil those noble old trees, whose very knots and 
 wrinkles I love, for what they had to sacrifice in order to 
 my "bringing up." 
 
 Yes, the teacher may continue to flog, and no law will 
 save the lad excepting the law which in its spirit provides 
 that the stick be of reasonable size — not too many knots 
 in it; that it be not used with unreasonable force, nor for 
 an unreasonable cause, and that the teacher shall exercise 
 reasonable kindness in choosing as to where to make the 
 application. Anything beyond this, and the teacher will 
 finu that he who laughs last laughs best. 
 
 The question is, always, whether, considering the of- 
 fense of the child, his age, condition, and all the circum- 
 stances, the teacher inflicted extreme and unnecessary pun- 
 ishment. 
 
 The right is to punish in a proper manner and to a proper 
 degree. If the teacher goes beyond that, the act becomes 
 unlawful, and he is responsible for the consequences. 
 
 In determining this question the teacher must take into 
 consideration the size and apparent condition of the child, 
 the character of the instrument of punishment used, and 
 the manner of its use, the part of the body to which it is 
 applied, and the extent of the application. 
 
 It must always be borne in mind that the welfare of the 
 child is the main purpose for which pain is permitted to 
 be inflicted. Any punishment, therefore, which may seri- 
 ously endanger life, limb or health, or will disfigure the 
 
134 - SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 child or cause any permanent injury, may be pronounced, 
 in itself, immoderate, as not only being unnecessary for, 
 but inconsistent with, the purpose for which it is author- 
 ized. Punishment, however, which produces temporary 
 pain only, and no permanent ill, cannot be so pronounced. 
 When the correction is not in itself immoderate, its legality 
 or illegality must depend entirely on the animus with which 
 it is administered. Judge Cooley says the tendency of mod- 
 ern authority is to restrict rather than enlarge the power 
 of the teacher in this respect, and that the brutal and sav- 
 age methods of punishment formerly tolerated are fast dis- 
 appearing under the refining influence of modern civiliza- 
 tion. 
 
 Horace Mann says of corporal punishment : "It should 
 be reserved for the baser faults. It is a coarse remedy 
 and should be employed upon the coarser sins of our ani- 
 mal nature and when employed at all it should be admin- 
 istered in strong doses." 
 
 No precise rule can be laid down as to when or to what 
 extent corporal punishment should be inflicted. Each case 
 must depend upon its own circumstances. We cannot too 
 strongly condemn the custom prevalent in some schools, 
 of threatening such punishment, and inflicting it for every 
 trivial ofifense. Familiarity with the rod breeds contempt 
 for it. The witnessing of even a few floggings per month 
 tends to familiarize the school with the performance, and 
 engenders the feeling that it is as necessary to a well con- 
 ducted school as is calling the roll. The fear of the rod, 
 the feeling of disgrace and humiliation attendant upon its 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 135 
 
 use, is lost in the knowledge that it is not productive of 
 serious consequences, and that other boys and girls have 
 lived through it. If punishment of this sort be resorted 
 to, let it not be made one of the school exercises. This 
 stopping of the machinery of the school to give a boy a 
 thrashing seems to me as much out of harmony with things 
 as the action of the little boy who was on his knees in his 
 little night dress saying his prayers. His little sister could 
 not resist the temptation to tickle the soles of his feet. He 
 stood it as long as he could, and then said : "Please, God, 
 excuse me a minute, while I knock the stuffing out of Jen- 
 nie." 
 
 The less frequently a punishment is administered, the 
 more healthful feeling will exist regarding its exercise, and 
 the more wholesome fear of it will be found among the 
 pupils. The teacher must take also into consideration the 
 mental and moral qualities of the pupil, and, as indicative 
 of these, his general behavior in school, and his attitude 
 towards his teacher. The immediate ofifense alone should 
 not determine the punishment, but the past offenses that 
 aggravate the present one, and show the pupil to have 
 been habitually refractory and disobedient. It is not neces- 
 sary in punishing to remind the pupil of his past and accu- 
 mulating offenses. The pupil knows them well enough, 
 without having them brought freshly to his notice. It 
 must be borne in mind that the master is not relieved from 
 liability in damages for the punishment of a scholar that is 
 clearly excessive and unnecessary, by the fact that he acted 
 in good faith and without malice, honestly thinking that 
 
136 SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 the punishment was necessary both for the discipline of 
 the school and the welfare of the child. Whether, under 
 the facts, the punishment was excessive, is a question for 
 the jury. The facts must determine in every case, but in 
 many cases the court has taken upon itself to instruct the 
 jury, as in one case that any punishment with a rod which 
 leaves marks or welts on the pupil for two months after- 
 wards or much less time is clearly excessive and actionable. 
 A teacher once wrote to a boy's parents proposing to beat 
 the boy severely. The father gave his permission, and the 
 teacher beat the boy for two and a half hours till he died. 
 He was adjudged guilty of manslaughter though no malice 
 was shown. The courts have also held that the pupil must 
 know, or be in position to know, the cause of the punish- 
 ment, or it will be actionable. 
 
 Only that punishment reasonably suited to the offense 
 and reasonably administered is allowable. As to what is 
 reasonable, the teacher must decide. Hence, if possible, 
 delay the punishment long enough to come to it with a rea- 
 soning temper and discrimination. If reasonable punish- 
 ment of the ordinary kind fails, brutal or cruel methods are 
 not excusable. Suspension or expulsion may then be re- 
 sorted to. 
 
 As leading us to the conclusion that this method of pun- 
 ishment is disappearing, we find a case stating that if the 
 punishment be administered for the gratification of passion 
 or of rage, or if it be immoderate in extent, or excessive in 
 its nature, or if it be protracted beyond the child's power 
 
SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 137 
 
 of endurance, or with an instrument unfitted for the pur- 
 pose or calculated to produce danger to life or limb, the 
 person inflicting it is liable to the law, and if death results 
 is liable for manslaughter. 
 
 It is held in a Tennessee case that a father may not so 
 interfere in the workings of a school, as to require that a 
 teacher should not whip his child; nor can a teacher dele- 
 gate the privilege of using the rod. The law requires him 
 to do his own whipping. The law is equally jealous of the 
 lad's prerogative, and will not allow him to give away his 
 privilege. What he gets is as difficult to get rid of as what 
 the teacher has to give. 
 
 Nor can a father authorize excessive punishment and the 
 teacher escape responsibility thereby. The father never 
 possessed that right, and cannot delegate it. The teacher 
 can punish the youth who has attained his majority, if he 
 voluntarily places himself in the position of pupil. The ad- 
 visability of the teacher's exercising his power in such cases 
 will, you will understand, depend greatly on the relative 
 size of the pupil and himself. We can imagine circum- 
 stances where corporal punishment would not meet with 
 favor in the teacher's eyes. There are two cases in the 
 books where pupils over age invoked the aid of the law, 
 but in each case the law refused to lend a helping hand. 
 The man thus placing himself under the authority of the 
 teacher, forfeits the rights and privileges his by nature, by 
 virtue of his reaching manhood's estate, and may be made 
 to stand on one leg or sit with the girls as any ten-year-old. 
 
 One of the cases referred to is that of a young lady 
 
138 SFRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 who had reached a point in life somewhat beyond majority, 
 and I was surprised, knowing the general truthfulness of 
 the sex, that it crept out in evidence in the case, that the 
 young lady had given her age as less than it actually was. 
 It does not appear whether or not she had designs on the 
 schoolmaster ; but the court evidently thought that a school- 
 master should have thrown around him the strong arm of 
 the law under such circumstances. 
 
 But, speaking of being compelled to sit with the girls, I 
 cannot refrain from expressing my condemnation of such 
 a method of punishment. What is the result of it, teachers, 
 on the boy whose ideas are just shaping into permanent 
 form. Tommy is caught winking at little Mary, and who 
 wouldn't? The teacher sees him. Nobody has winked at 
 her for so long she can't understand or appreciate it. 
 "Tommy, pick up your arithmetic and take that seat beside 
 Mary's ! " 
 
 Little Mary blushes. The school giggles. Tommy, as 
 red as a lobster from shame, takes his seat. He never 
 looks at little Mary — turns his back to her. A moment 
 before he wanted to kiss her, had just thrown a note to her 
 ofifering to share his apple with her at recess, if she would 
 only love him just a little bit and not talk so much to 
 Freddy Jones. A moment ago he would have thought it 
 the choicest privilege to sit down by little Mary and help 
 her get her lessons, or tell her some story of his youthful 
 prowess, and now he blushes because he must sit beside 
 her. He hates her at that moment, and yet, sweet little 
 Mary, her eyes brim full of tears — he loves her very apron 
 
SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 139 
 
 strings. What have you done? Crushed little buds of 
 love and promise, made Tommy think it a disgrace to sit 
 with a girl when he ought to consider it an honor, when he 
 ought to count himself on holy ground. He thinks every 
 bright little eye that twinkles at him, and every little curl 
 that nods at him, and every little figure that passes him at 
 his desk, is covering him with disgrace. Is that the way 
 to bring up a boy to think his wife, his mother, his sister, 
 is his equal, if not his superior? Is that the way to teach 
 a boy to be a gentleman, and to respect and love some 
 good woman? 
 
 If I were subjected to such punishment, I imagine I 
 would follow the example of the boy in the following : 
 
 "Old Master Brown brought his ferule down, 
 And his face looked angry and red. 
 
 'Go, seat you there, now, Anthony Blair, 
 Along with the girls,' he said. 
 
 Then Anthony Blair, with a mortified air, 
 With his head down on his breast, 
 
 Took his penitent seat by the maiden sweet. 
 That he loved of all the best. 
 
 And Anthony Blair seemed whimpering there. 
 But the rogue only made believe. 
 
 For he peeped at the girls with the beautiful curls 
 And ogled them over his sleeve." 
 
 Boys are only too likely to set themselves up as just a 
 little bit better than their sisters. 
 
 Two little boys, aged 5 and 7, were members of a fam- 
 ily, to which one day a young lady was added much to the 
 disgust of her brothers, who saw their influence gradually 
 slipping through their fingers. One day the little sister had 
 
I40 SFRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 a violent fit of crying. The eldest brother said, "Say, don't 
 she cry awfully?'' "Yes," said the younger, "But you can't 
 blame her." "Why, what ails her?" With great disgust, 
 "She's crying because she's a girl." 
 
 A lady said to live in Ohio is the mother of six boys. 
 One day a caller remarked in the presence of one of the 
 boys, an eight-year-old, "What a pity that one of your 
 boys had not been a girl !" The youth promptly interposed, 
 "I'd like to know who'd a bin her. I wouldn't a bin 'er, 
 Ed wouldn't a bin 'er, Joe wouldn't a bin 'er, Tom wouldn't 
 a bin 'er, Jack wouldn't a bin 'er. Will wouldn't a bin 'er. 
 I'd like to know who'd a bin 'er." 
 
 An interesting case involving the power of the teacher to 
 inflict corporal punishment is the case of Van Vactor 
 against the State, an Indiana case. During February, 1887, 
 Tyner Van Vactor was a teacher in Marshall county, Indi- 
 ana. He was eighteen years of age. Edward Patrick, a 
 boy of sixteen, was one of his pupils. One Friday after- 
 noon, while school was in session, Van Vactor directed Pat- 
 rick to bring in some wood and put it in the stove. Patrick 
 obeyed, but while engaged about the stove and while Van 
 Vactor's back was turned, he made some antic demonstra- 
 tions which created a general laugh among the children. 
 Van Vactor, as a punishment, required Patrick to stand up 
 by the stove for some time. After school Patrick put on his 
 overcoat preparatory to starting home, and, assuming to 
 claim that by having to stand by the stove he had become 
 very warm and liable to take cold, he put on Van Vactor's 
 
SFEAGUE'S SPEECHES. 141 
 
 overcoat. Van Vactor soon discovered the loss of his coat, 
 sent a messenger in hot haste who demanded its return, but 
 did not get it. Van Vactor thereupon went home minus 
 his overcoat. On Monday morning Van Vactor told Pat- 
 rick he stood temporarily suspended. During the day Van 
 Vactor saw the township trustee, who advised him that 
 Patrick should be required either to take a whipping or 
 leave the school, and in this view Van Vactor concurred. 
 On that evening Van Vactor told Patrick what had been 
 resolved upon. Patrick said he would not take the whip- 
 ping, but on returning to school the next morning he told 
 Van Vactor that he had consulted the family, and they 
 had advised him to take the whipping, provided it be not 
 inflicted upon him until after school and the others had left. 
 Van Vactor assented. Accordingly, during the day Van 
 Vactor provided himself with a green switch about three 
 feet in length and forked near the middle, forming two lim- 
 ber prongs. After school had closed and some moments 
 of apparent suspense had intervened, Patrick remarked that 
 it was time for the performance to begin, and assisted in re- 
 moving a table and in clearing the floor. He then placed 
 himself before, and with his face toward the blackboard, 
 and indicated he was ready. Van Vactor thereupon struck 
 Patrick nine sharp blows on the back part of his legs, be- 
 tween his suspender buttons and his knee joints. Patrick 
 made no outcry, and the switch was not broken. Two or 
 three days afterwards Van Vactor was arrested, charged 
 with assault and battery. A justice of the peace tried and 
 convicted him, a circuit court jury on appeal found him 
 
142 SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 guilty and fined him one cent (in consideration, we suppose, 
 of his salary). The case went to the Supreme Court, and 
 the judgment was reversed. The Court took into consider- 
 ation all the circumstances as related, with the additional 
 circumstance that Patrick had returned to school the morn- 
 ing following the day of the punishment with his skates, 
 that Van Vactor had testified he had been sorry to have 
 had to whip Patrick, that he had no malice, etc., and so 
 held that the offense merited punishment, and that the 
 punishment was reasonable, and the teacher exonerated, 
 saying that a teacher may exact compliance with all reason- 
 able rules, and may, in a kind and reasonable spirit, inflict 
 corporal punishment for disobedience. 
 
 To support a charge of assault and battery it is necessary 
 to show that the act was intended, but in the case of the 
 punishment of a pupil the intent may be inferred from the 
 unreasonableness of the method adopted or the excess of 
 the force employed, but the burden of proving such unrea- 
 sonableness or such excess is on the State. 
 
 In such a case, in addition to the general presumption 
 of his innocence, to which everyone charged with a crime is 
 entitled, the teacher is presumed to have done his duty. 
 
 [Here follow references to other cases.] 
 
 As I have said, the benefit of the doubt always rests with 
 the teacher. To the boy is left the benefit of the punish- 
 ment, thus, of course, creating what may seem an unfair 
 advantage in the former, but to the glory of the profes- 
 sion, let me repeat, in the first one hundred years of our 
 nation's history only four cases have reached the higher 
 
SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 143 
 
 courts where the teacher has been charged with this exces- 
 sive exercise of his authority, and in but two of these was 
 the charge upheld by the court, in the other two, the courts 
 holding the teacher justified in his conduct. This is say- 
 ing a great deal, seeing what excellent material our fathers 
 must have made for early schoolmasters to practice upon. 
 
 No doubt this benefit of the doubt law should be changed, 
 but it never will be, for the boys who want and need the 
 change, cease to care for it about the time they grow old 
 enough to be able to take a hand in changing it; so that 
 each successive generation of little urchins must put up 
 with the benefit of nothing unless it be the benefit of the 
 "licking." 
 
 Some of us, however, who are yet on the hither side of 
 middle age, may like to see the day when the schoolboy 
 may not have to wear double breasted trousers, for, with 
 all things terrestrial, the law is subject to changes and im- 
 provement, and as indicative of this, I see a court has just 
 held that a man is not liable for a bill for shampooing his 
 wife's head, on the ground that it was not a necessity. 
 
 But the conscience of the race is surely growing more 
 tender. We are civilizing our methods of punishment. 
 Love, an hitherto almost unknown factor, is asserting its 
 power. 
 
 "The twig is so easily bended, 
 
 I have banished the rule and the rod; 
 I have taught them the goodness of knowledge. 
 
 They have taught me the goodness of God. 
 
144 SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 "My heart is a dungeon of darkness, 
 Where I shut them for breaking a rule, 
 
 My frown is sufficient correction, 
 My love is the law of the school. 
 
 "They are idols of hearts and of households. 
 
 They are angels of God in disguise, 
 His sunlight still sleeps in their tresses, 
 
 His glory still shines in their eyes. 
 
 "These truants from home and from Heaven, 
 
 Have made me more manly and mild, 
 I know now how Jesus could liken 
 The kingdom of God to a child." 
 
 And now I will wager, teacher, that you are thinking 
 of a certain barefooted, dirty-faced boy who gives you so 
 many hours of pain, and you are saying, "Well, I will at 
 least keep the stick for him." 
 
 "Then think of the paths steep and stony. 
 Where the feet of the dear ones must go; 
 Of the mountains of sin hanging o'er them. 
 Of the tempests of fate blowing wild. 
 Oh, there is nothing on earth half so holy 
 As the innocent heart of a child." 
 
 What a beautiful picture is that of the kind-hearted 
 schoolmaster, given by Malcolm Douglass : 
 
 A funny old professor kept a school for little boys, 
 
 And he'd romp with them in playtime, and he wouldn't mind their 
 
 noise; 
 While in his little schoolroom, with its head against the wall. 
 Was a bed of such proportions it was big enough for all. 
 
SFRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 145 
 
 "It's for tired little pupils," he explained; "for you will find 
 How very wrong, indeed, it is to force a budding mind; 
 Whenever one grows sleepy and he can't hold up his head, 
 I make him lay his primer down and send him of? to bed 
 
 "And sometimes it will happen on a warm and pleasant day. 
 When the little birds upon the trees go toorallooral lay. 
 When wide-awake and studious it's difficult to keep, 
 One by one they'll get a-nodding till the whole class is asleep! 
 
 "Then, before they're all in dreamland and their funny snores begin, 
 I close the shutters softly so the sunlight can't come in; 
 After which I put the schoolbooks in their order on the shelf, 
 And, with nothing else to do, I take a little nap myself!" 
 
 As we grow older we live more and more in the past 
 I recall that once in the attic of my father's house I hap- 
 pened upon a pair of knee breeches, soiled and worn. The 
 instinct of a boy still lingering in my grown up nature, I 
 at once went down into the pockets and there I found an 
 old knife, a broken fish hook, a piece of string and a slate 
 pencil. Do you know what I did? I sat down on an old 
 trunk and turned those little worthless trinkets over and 
 over, and as I did so, I saw the old school room and the 
 boys and girls, the little slate drawn all over with pictures 
 of battles of the Franco-Prussian war, with visible bullets 
 flying through the air, the old falls back of the grove where 
 I went fishing for minnows, and the kites we flew upon 
 the commons. How long I sat there, what unmanly feel- 
 ings I had is only known to myself and even now as 
 I return from time to time to the scenes of my youth there 
 is nothing I delight so much in doing as in seeking out the 
 spots sacred to me because of their connection with my 
 boyish life. 
 
146 SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 Teachers, you who have grown to older age, do you not 
 deHght in going down into the pockets of the past and do 
 you care if some of the little trinkets you draw forth are 
 not so bright and clean as they might be? Is that bad 
 boy any the less dear to you, now? 
 
 What a troop of bright memories must follow in the wake 
 of the gray-haired teacher, and what would you who are 
 not teachers give to be able to say : 
 
 When the lessons and tasks are all ended, 
 
 And the school for the day is dismissed, 
 The little ones gather around me 
 
 To bid me good-night and be kissed. 
 O, the little white arms that encircle 
 
 My neck in their tender embrace! 
 O, the smiles that are halos of heaven, 
 
 Shedding sunshine of love on my face, 
 
 I shall leave the old house in the autumn. 
 
 To traverse its threshold no more; 
 Ah! how I shall sigh for the dear ones 
 
 That meet me each morn at the door; 
 I shall miss the "good-nights" and the kisses, 
 
 And the gush of their innocent glee, 
 The groups on the green, and the flowers 
 
 That are brought every morning to me. 
 
 I shall miss them at morn and at even. 
 
 Their song in the school and the street, 
 I shall miss the low hum of their voices 
 
 And the tread of their delicate feet. 
 When the lessons of life are all ended. 
 
 And Death says, "The school is dismissed!" 
 May the little ones gather around me, 
 
 To bid me good-night and be kissed! 
 
THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE PARK HOTEL, NEW YORK CITY, 
 
 AT A BANQUET OF THE NE W YORK COMMERCIAL 
 
 LA W LEAGUE, IN i8g6. 
 
 I am to talk to the sentiment, the signs of the times ; I 
 will do so briefly. 
 
 I am not a soothsayer nor a reader of auguries, nor am 
 I much of a dreamer; I am entirely too busy with the 
 present to get often into the mood of the prophet; I have 
 not lived long enough to be much of a philosopher; 'life 
 has always been too much of a struggle with me to make 
 me a speculator; but I am not so blind to the significance 
 of passing events as not to see in them some indications 
 pregnant with future possibilities. To particularize: 
 
 This banquet board is a sign of the times. Did you in 
 your wildest imaginings dream of such an incident as this, 
 five years — three years — one year ago? I made a visit to 
 this city in 1890, I think it was. I met Mr. Whitehead, 
 Mr. Niles, Mr. Remington, Mr. Walker, and a half a hun- 
 dred others engaged in the business of commercial law, col- 
 lections and reports. I spent a delightful Sunday afternoon 
 in the hospitable home of Mr. Remington, I lunched with 
 Mr. Walker, I mingled with these men, I studied them, I 
 tried to learn the conditions of the business, and I went 
 home thoroughly satisfied that every man in the business 
 in New York was a good fellow but was supremely selfish, 
 
 147 
 
148 SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 in so far as his treatment of his fellows was concerned; 
 and further that nothing was too good for an "outsider" 
 from Detroit or from any other country hamlet. Honor- 
 able men engaged in honorable work whose interests were 
 along identical lines, were not only not acquainted with 
 one another, but were indifferent, suspicious, and too often 
 bitterly hostile to one another. 
 
 I went to Chicago and found much the same condition 
 of things, and I concluded, either that the business had 
 something inherently wrong in it or that the wrong per- 
 sons were engaged in it. 
 
 "Time works many miracles," and among these miracles 
 is an association of these very men, with their legs under 
 the same mahogany, and much of the old-time indifference 
 wiped away ; and despite this event, I imagine that to-mor- 
 row your business will go on just as smoothly and just as 
 profitably as of yore. 
 
 I had to give a little advice once to an impatient, over- 
 worked, underpaid country lawyer; I told him that I 
 thought the commercial lawyer would some day come out 
 of the wilderness of poor methods, poor fees, poor results; 
 he wrote me in reply that he would be satisfied if he, like 
 Moses, could just live long enough to get a peep into the 
 promised land. Well, I may be an enthusiast but I believe 
 the Commercial Law League of America will be the Joshua 
 of the host that will live to see a better country — not per- 
 haps flowing with milk and honey, but at least not a desert 
 of barren rock and blistering sands. 
 
 Again : The last five years have developed much thought 
 
SFRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 149 
 
 and discussion as to office management. To the lawyer of 
 fifty years ago, this would sound supremely unprofessional. 
 To him the model law office was an omnum gatherum — 
 an untidy, disarranged mass of papers, books, ink spots, 
 cuspidors, cobwebs and cockroaches. His tickler, was his 
 tardy conscience; his letter press, too often the well worn 
 seat of his under — standing or rather — sitting; his docket, 
 a last year's almanac ; his office boy, an unkempt lout of a 
 youth; his file case, his hat and his capacious pocket; his 
 greatest accomplishment, his windy declamation before a 
 jury. Professional ethics absolutely denied him the privi- 
 lege of being business-like ; so the public came to consider 
 it professional to do business behind dirty windows, on 
 dirty floors, and with dirty books. You will find all law 
 offices so pictured in novels — Dickens and all other novel- 
 ists bear witness ! 
 
 The telegraph, the telephone, the typewriter, the rail- 
 road, the steamboat, the electric car, have produced a dif- 
 ferent sort of a man, who now asks of the public its pat- 
 ronage. The modern business lawyer and (another devel- 
 opment of the times) the business manager of collections 
 and credits in agencies and mercantile houses, are signs 
 of the coming also of a new code of professional ethics. 
 
 The modern business lawyer and the collection and credit 
 manager must be clean, systematic, thorough, quick, able. 
 He must have telegraph and telephone at his very desk. 
 He must live with his traveling equipment ready at hand. 
 He must employ one, two, three, a dozen, quick, trained 
 helpers to help him do his work. He is at his office early 
 
I50 SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 and late. He eats his lunch as a gun is loaded, ramming in, 
 first the powder, then the wad — and he is in luck if the 
 gun goes off without bursting. 
 
 Modern commerce and modern business life have cre- 
 ated the novi homines, and with their advent the days for 
 which the old lawyer sighs (as fast he loses his grip) are 
 no more. 
 
 With the necessity of doing business fast, comes the 
 necessity of system ; with system comes expense ; with mod- 
 ern energy comes modern competition; with modern com- 
 petition comes a cheapening of labor, more expensive ap- 
 pliances and methods, less pay — result, only the most 
 capable men are to make the money. The time has gone 
 by when a novice can enter the commercial law field and 
 succeed. 
 
 Let me congratulate the New York Commercial Law 
 League : first, on the very evident fact of its existence ; and 
 second, on its ability thus early developed to take substan- 
 tial food. I am the proud father of two infants whose 
 stomachs are being experimented upon with indifferent suc- 
 cess and I can appreciate the spectacle of a two-months 
 old youngster taking food naturally and without coughing 
 up its little lungs in an effort to be happy. 
 
 Let me also congratulate the New York Commercial 
 Law League again on its good judgment in so timing its 
 dinner as to meet the gastronomic requirements of the 
 National Executive Committee now meeting in this city. 
 You probably appreciate the housewife's secret that the 
 nearest way to a man's heart is through his stomach and 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 151 
 
 have promptly taken that route to the affections of the 
 very august gentlemen who hold in their hands so largely 
 the iate of the National League. Not being on that com- 
 mittee myself, I have come to take part in this affair in 
 order to see that, in winning its heart, you do not at the 
 same time steal away its judgment, and that lulled to sleep 
 by your soft caresses it may not fall to sleep in the lap of 
 its DeHlah and be shorn of its strength. 
 
 I shall take no more of your time, but thanking you for 
 your courtesy to myself and my co-laborers I bid you 
 good-night. 
 
THE STEPS THAT LED UP TO MAGNA 
 CHARTA. 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE CHICAGO LA W STUDENTS' 
 
 ASSOCIATION IN THE LECTURE ROOM OF THE 
 
 KENT COLLEGE OF LA W IN j8gj. 
 
 Government by the consent of the governed, — the under- 
 lying principle of good government the world over, writ- 
 ten in no uncertain terms in Magna Charta, — was but the 
 blood bought reassertion on English soil of what had been 
 in the breasts of men of every race in all time — God given 
 and eternal. 
 
 Magna Charta is both a closing point and a starting point. 
 English History before it is a prophesy of it ; English His- 
 tory after it is a growth from it. It is the finished cap- 
 piece of the first twelve hundred years of the christian era ; 
 it is the chief corner-stone of the last seven hundred. The 
 early centuries looked timidly forward to it; the later 
 pointed bravely back to it. 
 
 In tracing the steps that led up to Magna Charta, we 
 must take a view of early English History. 
 
 What troubles us at the outset is where to make our 
 beginning. English History, says one, begins with the 
 Celt and the Druid; says another, with the Roman Con- 
 quest; another, with the Teutonic Invasion; another, with 
 Alfred the Grert. Our starting point must be to a certain 
 extent arbitrarily chosen, for like the sources of a mighty 
 
 152 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 153 
 
 river, who can say, standing at the point where the Father 
 of Waters pours its mighty flood into the Gulf, here is a 
 drop of water from the snow covered fields and mountains, 
 here is one from a spring among the Wisconsin Hills, here 
 is one from the gorges of the Rocky Mountains, and here 
 one from the peaceful farm-lands of western New York. 
 I must confess that amid the conflict of opinion as to the 
 various sources of our laws and our institutions I stand 
 bewildered. Of this I am convinced, that however much 
 we owe to our Teutonic ancestors of the little district of 
 Angeln in the promontory that juts out from north Ger- 
 many and divides the North Sea from the Baltic, to them 
 belongs not all the debt; for I shall find something of the 
 beginnings among an older people than the Teutons, 
 namely, the Celts. 
 
 While much in the growth of a people is but the work- 
 ing out of ideas, and intuitions, you may say, planted in 
 the breast of man by his maker, something of that growth 
 is due to physical environment. As a stream is shallow or 
 deep, narrow and swift or broad and sluggish, clean and 
 beautiful or muddy and repulsive, straight or tortuous in 
 its windings, according to the topography of the country 
 through which it passes and the character of its soil, so 
 must the life of a people be earnest or frivolous, liberty- 
 loving or indififerent, progressive or slothful, quick, intel- 
 ligent and enterprising or heavy, ignorant and slothful, ac- 
 cording to the physical conditions of climate, soil and sit- 
 uation. 
 
 As steps that led up to Magna Charta we have no right 
 to overlook the steps the Almighty himself took for the 
 
154 SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES, 
 
 Englishman in building for him a home fitted to become 
 the home of a liberty loving, intelligent, aggressive, pros- 
 perous people! Witness, its mountainous western coast 
 and its rich lowlands to the east, its back turned to the 
 ocean, its face to Europe; cut off from a further western 
 march the rolling waves of invasion break upon its moun- 
 tain barriers and perforce must settle, and what is more 
 must fight, — must settle because further advance is physic- 
 ally impossible, — must fight because the pressing tide of 
 newcomers must push them into the ocean or itself retire. 
 In time this condition produced a "home feeHng" which 
 grew into pride of ancestry, of home, of country, without 
 which no people can hope to become a nation, in the true 
 sense of the term. With its face toward Europe, isolated 
 from Europe and yet a part of it, with perfect natural boun- 
 daries to curb ambition and to check the greed of others, 
 with rocky coasts in the main as natural defenses, the home 
 of the Englishman becomes, by the very argument of neces- 
 sity, a compact whole, with the strong arm of nature as 
 her defender. Compelled thus, even if indeed the spirit 
 of her people, inherited from the first comers did not com- 
 pel her, England became the great sea going, commercial 
 nation, mistress of the sea and ruler of one-fourth of the 
 inhabitable globe. Her climate (in a latitude the same as 
 that of Labrador, yet by reason of the Gulf stream as tem- 
 perate as our Gulf states) enabled her to produce a race of 
 people at once hardy, industrious, independent, at the same 
 time lovers of art and of learning. Her mountains have 
 been the unconquerable fastnesses within which the con- 
 servative energies of the past have lived to temper the 
 
SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 155 
 
 rashness of zeal. Within these rocky fortresses the tradi- 
 tions of former years, the unconquered spirit of the early 
 Celt have lived on, — a silent but powerful force in all time 
 against oppressive as well as inane government. Former 
 kings lived in terror of these mountain peoples whose fre- 
 quent incursions brought the English crown to its senses 
 on many an occasion ; while in later years the sturdy com- 
 mon sense of the men of these districts has proved the bal- 
 ance-wheel to the government. 
 
 Had England been an unbroken plain, her history would 
 have been far diflferent. Had she been a part of the Con- 
 tinent, Philip of Spain would not have lost his invincible 
 fleet upon her rock-bound coasts and the majestic name of 
 Napoleon might have shone forth in the annals of Eng- 
 land's Kings ; had her climate been what her latitude would 
 naturally give her, her commercial and political history 
 had been far different. 
 
 In the making of Magna Charta let us therefore not for- 
 get that the hand of God, in the mysterious ways in which 
 He has worked through all ages, prepared for Englishmen 
 a heritage worth their pains to win and to hold. 
 
 The history of England up to Magna Charta I divide 
 into four periods : First, the Celtic — from the dawn of his- 
 tory to the Roman Conquest, 55 B. C. Second, the Roman 
 — from 55 B. C. to the Anglo Saxon in 437. Third, the 
 Anglo Saxon — from the invasion to the Norman in 1066. 
 Fourth, the Norman — from the Norman invasion to the 
 Charter 121 5. 
 
 [The speaker here quickly traces the early centuries of 
 English History. This part we omit.] 
 
156 SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 From steps more remote we now come to such as are 
 nearer — to some whose sound is in no ways uncertain. 
 Now we can hear the steady tramp of progress ; and our 
 heart quickens, as history begins to unfold itself and man 
 begins to rise in his real dignity and assert his rights — 
 not as a class — not as Lords — but as man. It now begins 
 to look as if manhood alter all is to stand for something 
 in England and that there are some things the property of 
 man as man that even a King of England must respect. 
 Streaks of grey fall across the sky in the early morning 
 of the thirteenth century that to our eager expectant gaze 
 betoken the break of a new day; sounds come up from city, 
 hamlet and country places, from castle and cloister, from 
 the wretched abode of the ignorant rabble and the halls of 
 the University, from highland and lowland, from men bur- 
 dened, distracted, crushed, — sounds that are ominously 
 near and heavy with meaning. 
 
 The first of these nearer signs I will name is the growing 
 distrust, amounting to hatred, of foreign influences in the 
 "high places" of England. From 1066, when William the 
 Conqueror landed in England, to the time of John, about 
 1200 (a period of about 140 years), England had been 
 under the rule of alien kings. These kings gave themselves 
 generally to a more or less wise government, the great 
 mass of the common people remaining aloof from the Nor- 
 man nobles who came into possession of the castles and 
 places of honor and dignity. By the time of the accession 
 of Henry II, the Norman and the foreign elements had 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 157 
 
 been fairly well assimilated, and England had become thor- 
 oughly English. Norman speech, Norman customs, Nor- 
 man manners, were swallowed up, and out of the one hun- 
 dred years of Norman rule had sprung up a new England, 
 an England strong in her attachment for purely English 
 customs and traditions. 
 
 Treasure and blood had been poured out in continuous 
 efiforts to hold the French possessions of the Norman 
 Kings, but not till the accession of the Angevin Kings, 
 Henry II., Richard, and John, did the people wake to 
 the realization that England was but a treasure house 
 from which gold could be drawn for wars across the chan- 
 nel. A rude awakening it was, too, when, after generations 
 had spent their best efforts at the bidding of foreign-born 
 Kings in holding these French provinces, King John lost 
 Normandy and came home stripped of every foot of French 
 soil. Was it for this that Englishmen had fought — for 
 this they had suffered loss of estate and honor? 
 
 But out of it, as indeed often out of the darkest seeming 
 misfortunes come the best of blessings, came a glorious 
 day for England. England's King must henceforth live 
 at home, must know his subjects, must hear their cries, 
 must touch their lives, must see their condition. No more 
 residing abroad, no more flying visits to England to whip 
 into submission recalcitrant nobles, no more foreign nobles 
 quartered in every manor ; from henceforth England's King 
 must take a responsibility unknown to him before. 
 
 A common English feeling, a common hatred of foreign 
 
i5g SPIIAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 rule and influence, brought an immense outburst of ma- 
 terial and intellectual activity. John found himself face to 
 face with this new English people — a nation quickened with 
 a new life and throbbing with a new energy. 
 
 Again : A new fervor of study sprang up in the west from 
 its contact throughout the Crusades with the more cul- 
 tured east. Travelers brought back the rudiments of sci- 
 ence from the schools of Cordova and Bagdad. The study 
 of the Roman law was revived. Wandering teachers spread 
 the new learning. The same spirit of restlessness, of in- 
 quiry, of impatience at the traditions that drove half of 
 Christendom to the tomb of our Lord, drove thousands 
 to centers where teachers could be found. Oxford in the 
 beginning of the 13th century took rank with the greatest 
 schools of the eastern world. The feudal and ecclesiastical 
 order of the old mediaeval world were both alike threat- 
 ened by the power that had so strangely sprung up in their 
 midst. Unlike feudalism, the University was a protest 
 against the isolation of man from man. Wealth, physical 
 strength, pride of ancestry, the very grounds on which feu- 
 dal society rested, went for nothing in the lecture room. 
 The University was a state absolutely self governed, whose 
 citizens were admitted by a purely intellectual franchise; 
 all had an equal right to counsel in this free commonwealth, 
 and all had an equal vote; their voices named every officer, 
 proposed and sanctioned every statute ; even the chancellor 
 became an elected officer of their own. This democratic 
 institution threatened feudalism. 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 159 
 
 Again : The English town in early days was only a more 
 thickly populated part of the country and governed the 
 same as were the townships around it. The obligations 
 of the inhabitants were the same : to keep fence and trench 
 in good repairs, to send a contingent to the wars, and to 
 the reeve, and four men to the hundred and the shire court. 
 The landless man who dwelt within it had no share in the 
 corporate life; the rule of the borough lay in the hands of 
 its own freemen gathered in "borough-moot." But with 
 the Danish wars came a change : Each man came to have 
 a "lord," and the borough came into the hands of great 
 thegns ; a new officer, the King's reeve was appointed, who 
 collected the lord's dues, and justice and government lay 
 wholly in the lord's hands, he recovering the fines and for- 
 feitures, the fees and tolls of the markets and fairs. But 
 when once these were paid and the services rendered, the 
 English townsman was practically free. 
 
 But here comes a change in the constitution of the town's 
 social condition in the way of Merchant Guilds, which 
 form another long step to Magna Charta. These Guilds 
 grew out of those principles of mutual aid and mutual re- 
 straint that lay at the basis of our old institutions. There 
 was the oath of mutual fidelity; the monthly feast that 
 bound together the new artificial family, which was to give 
 rise to a mutual responsibility unknown before. "Let all 
 share the same lot," ran its laws ; "if any misdo, let all bear 
 it." On the other hand the wrongdoer was responsible to 
 his fellows, as they were to the state, for order and obedi- 
 ence to the laws. By a gradual coalescing of these Guilds, 
 
i6o SFE AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 powerful influences obtained a place in every considerable 
 town and city. This inevitably brought about great 
 changes in municipal institutions. The body of citizens in 
 towns is soon found to be legislating in matters of internal 
 trade. At a later stage we find the citizens petitioning the 
 King for special privileges as, rights of coinage, fairs, ex- 
 emptions from tolls, etc. 
 
 Thus is going on a peaceful revolution, services disap- 
 pearing, privileges and immunities growing. In the silent 
 growth of the English people the boroughs thus lead the 
 way ; across ages of oppression they bring the right of self- 
 government, the right of free speech in free meetings, the 
 right to equal justice at the hands of one's equals. 
 
 The Charter that Henry granted to London became a 
 model for lesser boroughs : The King yielded to its citizens 
 the right of justice; each townsman could claim to be tried 
 by his fellow-townsman in the town court. 
 
 At the time of the Great Charter the larger towns had 
 secured the privilege of self-government, the admmistra- 
 tion of justice, and the control of their own trade, and were 
 beginning to acquire the right of electing their own magis- 
 trates: But the mass of the citizens, the serfs, the land- 
 less poor, the artisans, had no part in the actual life of the 
 town. The distance between the landed burghers who had 
 a monopoly of trade with wealth and the artisan class tended 
 to widen. There arose a distinction between the higher 
 and lower classes of trades bringing about the Merchant 
 Guild as the name of the former, and the Craft-Guild as 
 that of the latter. As time went on, however, the Craft- 
 Guild in numbers and influence obtained the superior place 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. i6i 
 
 and influence and this struggle of the few "greater folk" 
 against the mass of the inhabitants marks the great civic 
 revolutions of the 13th and 14th centuries. It was in this 
 strife (secret for the greater part) between the Craft-Guild 
 and the upper or aristocratic Merchant-Guild that the com- 
 mon people learned to wage a war against oppression that 
 made them a potent factor in the "baron's war" that 
 wrested Magna Charta from King John. 
 
 Another step was the growing tendency to commute 
 labor-service, which grew out of the feudal system, for 
 money payments. 
 
 The population was increasing, the law of gavel-kind 
 divided the inheritance of the tenantry equally among the 
 sons so that the holding of each tenant and the services 
 due from it became divided in a corresponding degree ; a 
 labor rent became difficult for this reason to enforce, while 
 the increase of wealth among the tenantry and the rise of a 
 spirit of independence made it more burdensome to those 
 who rendered it. This process was hastened by the neces- 
 sities of the lords themselves. In it even the kings took 
 part. Kings and nobles, driven by the luxury of the 
 castle hall, the cost of foreign campaigns, the splendor of 
 chivalry, offered manumission for money. Thus by many 
 roads were Englishmen coming to the point of liberty; 
 thus were the people growing into national unity and na- 
 tional vigor. 
 
 The loss of Normandy, as we have said, was a sudden 
 blow to EngHsh pride. It brought home King John; he 
 had yet to get acquainted with his people ; his predecessor, 
 
1 62 SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 Richard, had visited them but twice and but for a few 
 months; Henry II. had been absent for years. Little did 
 John know the temper of the new England, as he stepped 
 upon English soil disgraced by his defeat. 
 
 The story of the reign of this miserable sovereign is soon 
 told and in that story we may find some of the more potent 
 causes of Magna Charta. John himself was his own worst 
 enemy. "Foul as it is, hell itself is defiled by the fouler 
 presence of John." Thus spake his contemporaries. 
 
 Quick, clever, social, industrious, fond of men of learn- 
 ing, yet in his heart lay insolence, selfishness, unbridled lust, 
 cruelty, tyranny, superstition and cynical indifference to 
 honor and truth. "Whom the Gods would destroy they 
 first make mad." A traitor to his father, a traitor to his 
 brother, a traitor to his wife, a traitor to his people, a traitor 
 to his God ! And yet (strange mingling) vigorous " and 
 able! 
 
 He returned from France, on the loss of Normandy and 
 with tremendous energy set about the repair of his for- 
 tunes: In the summer of 1205 a new army is ready; but 
 not yet can He start; two men, one a representative of the 
 church class, another of the baron class, protest. Why? 
 A son of Henry II., before whom Church and Baron had 
 fallen in abject submission, live to witness a spirit of inso- 
 lent freedom rising round him? Not so; he braces himself 
 against it. Death stops the opposition of the Primate, and 
 John, quick of purpose, sees to it that his tool, John de 
 Grey, is enthroned as Primate, but not without opposition, 
 for, at an informal meeting of the convent previously called, 
 
SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 163 
 
 another, in the person of Reginald, is chosen. The rival 
 claimants to the Primacy appeal to Rome. The Pope 
 quashes both elections and orders the monks in his pres- 
 ence to choose Stephen Langton. Here was usurpation 
 of the rights of king and church. The King protests ; he 
 does more, he threatens. The Pope threatens an interdict; 
 John threatens the banishment of the clergy and the mutila- 
 tion of every Italian found on English soil. The priests 
 refuse the King's tax demands ; John banishes their Arch- 
 bishop and extorts the money. The Pope thunders out his 
 interdict ; Church bells are silent and the dead lay unburied. 
 The Church, the main prop of royalty against the people, is 
 driven to open opposition. John cares not for all these. 
 He confiscates the church lands. The Pope excommuni- 
 cates the King. Churchmen who in obedience thereto shun 
 the King, are murdered or banished. The King stands 
 alone, the nobles and the Church against him. He prom- 
 ises, on his election, to satisfy the demands of the nobles 
 and right their wrongs. This promise he breaks. He 
 seizes their castles and carries away their children as host- 
 ages. War brings taxation and the loss of Normandy 
 deepens the wound. In 1212 the Pope issues a bull of 
 deposition and proclaims John an enemy of Christendom. 
 Surrounding nations fly to arms and the barons of England 
 to a man enter into secret conspiracies. At war with Rome, 
 with France, with Scotland, with Ireland, with Wales, — 
 at war with the Church ! 
 
 With characteristic suddenness he gives way. By remis- 
 sion of fines he tries to win the people ; he negotiates with 
 
1 64 SFRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 the people; receives Langton; promises to restore 'money 
 extorted from the Church; and on the 15th of May, 1213, 
 to crown his shame, he kneels before the Papal legate, sur- 
 renders his kingdom to the Holy See, and takes it back 
 again as a tributary vassal. The whole country murmurs. 
 The Barons still hold aloof. John calls upon them to fol- 
 low him over the sea for an attack on Phihp — and they re- 
 fuse. Furious, John marches against them. A new antag- 
 onist appears in the person of the Justiciar, Geoffry Fitz- 
 Peter. 
 
 At a gathering of a Council at St. Albans in August, 
 1213, for the purpose of assessing the damages to the 
 Church, Geoffry promises in the King's name good govern- 
 ment, forbids extortion, pledges the King's peace to all 
 and the observance of the laws of Henry I, The Pledges 
 of Henry L had long been forgotten when the Justiciar 
 brought them to light. 
 
 Stephen Langton, from the first a champion of English 
 freedom, sees the vast importance of the precedent. At 
 the close of August he produces Henry's charter in a gath- 
 ering of Barons at St. Paul's and it is. at once welcomed 
 as a basis for the needed reform. Then he hastens to the 
 King and gets his promise not to enter into strife with 
 the baronage but to bring the dispute to legal judgment. 
 In October the King returns to London, where his Jus- 
 ticiar lays before him the claims of the Councils of St. Albans 
 and St. Paul's. At this juncture the Justiciar dies and 
 John cries out, "Now, by God's feet, I am for the first time 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 165 
 
 King and Lord of England." But let us see: Langton 
 comes forward and demands the King's assent to the Char- 
 ter of Henry I.; the reading of that Charter has awakened 
 a tremendous enthusiasm among the baronage. No more 
 do we hear of secret scheming; now there is open, united, 
 definite claims of national freedom and national law. John 
 delays ; he must win back his French possession ; he crosses 
 to the continent, wins battle after battle, only to return 
 later to his Island home, defeated and humiliated. Now is 
 the people's chance. "Refuse to restore our liberties 'and 
 we swear to make war on you till they are restored," 
 Further delay ensues, till finally the memorable year of 
 1215 is ushered in to the accompaniment of armed men 
 marching to a common center to lay their demands before 
 the King. John is caught by surprise ; he asks for a truce ; 
 he hesitates ; he dodges ; he offers freedom to the Church ; 
 he offers to head a crusade. "Why do they ask for my 
 kingdom? I will never grant such liberties to make me a 
 slave!" He refuses and the country rises as one man. 
 London, Exeter, Lincoln, throw open their gates to the 
 barons. Promises of aid come from Scotland and Wales. 
 John bows to the necessity; calls the barons to a confer- 
 ence on an island in the Thames near a marshy meadow 
 by the riverside, the meadow of Runnymeade; on the 15th 
 of July they meet ; the great Charter is discussed and agreed 
 to in a single day. 
 
 A proud day for Englishmen, and yet there was nothing 
 new in that sacred document, now gazed at with reverence 
 
1 66 SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 by the whole English speaking race. Then why this rev- 
 erence? Because, though copying, in the main, the Char- 
 ter of Henry I. and incorporating little else than the re- 
 forms under Henry II., it came as a treaty (though in form 
 a grant) of a nation — a united community — a nation com- 
 posed not of nobles or of class as distinguished from class, 
 but of Englishmen — with its sovereign. It is here that 
 national patriotism and national sympathy gets its first de- 
 cided, self assertive impulse. It is to this that the thirteen 
 centuries, which we have so faintly outlined, have been 
 groping in unconscious obedience to the purpose of Al- 
 mighty God. The words of Magna Charta fall upon "the 
 ear of the earnest student of history with a grandeur and a 
 solemnity that must have awed the people of Israel in the 
 "Thou shalt not kill ; thou shalt not bear false witness ; 
 thou shalt not covet." None the less the voice of God 
 are the words of the Great Charter, because wrung from a 
 despot by a suffering people. They were not written upon 
 tablets of stone and delivered amid the thunders of Sinai — 
 but they come in a way infinitely more wonderful and writ- 
 ten upon the hearts and consciences of men with the blood 
 and tears of centuries. In the forty years in the wilder- 
 ness, Moses was required to bring back the people to the 
 memories of Sinai by exhibiting before them the tables of 
 stone; so in the past seven hundred years the English people 
 and all who lay claim to English liberties have had in their 
 wanderings to have brought before them from time to 
 time visions of this old Charter of King John. 
 
 4: ^ N: 4: * 4: 4: 
 
SFRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 167 
 
 By your kindness it is my privilege to address this, the 
 largest and most influential law students' society in Amer- 
 ica, on "The steps that led up to Magna Charta." No law 
 student can be indifferent to this subject. You will pardon 
 me if I express the hope that no law student before me is 
 attempting the study of the Common Law without a pre- 
 vious, or at least an accompanying, study of English His- 
 tory — and by English History I do not mean the recitals 
 of mere intrigues, battles, and coronations, but the history 
 of the people themselves, — the life of the masses, — the 
 struggle for education, for freedom of religious worship, for 
 the right to possess, enjoy and dispose of honestly acquired 
 property; for the right to buy and sell, to regulate local 
 affairs, and to have a representative voice in the law mak- 
 ing, the law interpreting, and the law executing. 
 
 The mere learning of ita est scripta, the mere memorizing 
 of the principles of modern law and the leading exceptions, 
 coupled with a fair ability to apply these principles to cases 
 in hand, may make a tolerable lawyer. Men may win cases 
 by sheer force of lung power, by tricks of action and rhet- 
 oric, by knowledge of the hidden springs, the touching of 
 which with adroit fingers produce desired results with 
 judges and juries. Men may, parrot-like, repeat verbatim 
 the words of statutes and decisions and we may call them 
 lawyers. God save the mark if this is all ! I ask you not 
 to be satisfied with the letter of the law, but to drink deep 
 of its spirit. Learn to love the law by living over the 
 struggles in its behalf. Make yourself one with the men 
 of all time who have drawn cross-bow, battle-axe, spear, 
 
i68 SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 and musket, to establish it. Suffer with them spoliation of 
 house and field that a magnificent despot might lead their 
 sons to useless and wicked war. Suffer with them the 
 humiliation of serfdom while the land that they and their 
 fathers bought with the best blood of Europe is made the 
 football of wicked despots and designing courtesans. 
 
 Learn the value of these principles which you are study- 
 ing, by knowing what it has cost to establish them. You 
 will then come from the study of history to your law-books 
 as the Levite approached the Temple Altar. 
 
 "Put off the shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon 
 thou standest is holy ground." 
 
THE MINNESOTA ASSOCIATION. 
 
 A TOAST TO ''FRATERNITY," DELIVERED AT THE IN- 
 
 A UGURAL BANQUET OF THE MINNESOTA AS SO CIA TION 
 
 OF THE BETA THETA PI COLLEGE FRATERNITY, 
 
 AT ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA, IN 1884. 
 
 Brothers of the Beta Theta Pi: 
 
 You have proposed a toast to the Minnesota Associa- 
 tion. I may say, the Minnesota Association speaks for 
 itself. The fact that out of 25 Betas scattered throughout 
 this State 17 have come to this first meeting and banquet 
 is an eloquent response in itself to this sentiment. 
 
 I can perhaps do no better this evening in responding to 
 this toast than to make you acquainted with the personnel 
 of our organization, and to outline to you its purposes and 
 plans. First, let me say that the spirit of our fraternity 
 is progress. From the time of its cradling in an obscure 
 Ohio college, nearly fifty years ago, activity, enterprise, 
 constant progress has characterized its career. It has 
 leaped the bounds of sectionalism. It owes allegiance to 
 no section, no party, no creed. In its infancy, it converted 
 Ohio and Indiana, body and soul, so that to-day no man 
 in those two states has a show in this world, — and I was 
 about to add, the next — unless once he has tasted 'the 
 Pierian spring of Betaism, and romped in childhood about 
 
 169 
 
I70 SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 the knee of "Father WoogHn." Ohio's next governor is a 
 Beta. Indiana has had a Beta governor ever since the 
 dawn of history. Both of her Senators, the tall sycamore 
 of the Wabash, Daniel Voorhies, and Fighting Joe Mc- 
 Donald are Betas. Her distinguished ex- Vice-President, 
 Schuyler Colfax, Postmaster General Gresham and Dr. 
 Theophilus Parvin are Betas. Her old war governor and 
 able Senator, now dead, Oliver P. Morton, was a Beta, and 
 doubtless is yet. The next President of the United States, 
 if a Democrat, will come from Ohio or Indiana, and the 
 only men in those two States who have any chance for that 
 place on that ticket are Geo. Hoagley, Durbin Ward, Gen. 
 Gresham and Senator McDonald, — all Betas. 
 
 Beta Theta Pi early planted herself in a half a dozen 
 southern colleges ; and these chapters the troublous times 
 of the war failed to exterminate. During the last decade, 
 Alpha Sigma Chi glided into the harbor of Betaism. Beta 
 Theta Pi to-day shows a strong and determined front, amid 
 the powerful eastern fraternities, at Harvard, Brown, Bos- 
 ton, Maine State, Union, Stevens' Institute, Columbia, Rut- 
 gers, Cornell, St. Lawrence, Madison, Amherst and Johns 
 Hopkins. 
 
 Not content with victories in the eastern and southern 
 and middle States, Beta Theta Pi has followed Horace 
 Greeley's advice, and captured Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, 
 Kansas, — yes, has followed civilization to the Golden Gate, 
 and there established "Omega," a chapter which success- 
 fully fought a supreme court, and is to-day, though draw- 
 ing its life-blood from a source thousands of miles away, 
 yet the rosiest cheeked "chap" among the young chapters. 
 
SFRAGUE'S SPEECHES, 171 
 
 Not content with conquests that have made her the only 
 truly national college fraternity, she has elevated the tone 
 and dignity of her organization and membership, till the 
 fraternity world places her among the three best fraterni- 
 ties, and the one of those three best calculated to increase in 
 usefulness and power. Her national conventions are gath- 
 erings of her representative men from all sections, whose 
 deliberations are watched with interest by all fraternities. 
 She was the first to move in the matter of a "pan-Hellenic 
 Council." She was the first to fling to the light of a sus- 
 picious and jealous public, her constitution. Her journal 
 is in the front rank of fraternity journalism. Unlike many of 
 her rivals, she has never yielded to the pernicious custom 
 of electing merely honorary members, and has virtually 
 discarded that equally pernicious custom of initiating 
 "preps." Such, in brief, is the position Beta Theta Pi occu- 
 pies to-day ; and I desire those who have not kept the run 
 of fraternity matters for some years, who have allowed the 
 finger of time to erase some good things from their mem- 
 ories, who have allowed the dust of worldly strife to accu- 
 mulate upon some old pictures in their mind's gallery — I 
 desire these brothers to open their eyes to the fact, that 
 while they have been sleeping, something has happened. 
 Beta Theta Pi has been making men presidents, senators, 
 legislators, judges, — a few lawyers and other such rubbish. 
 She has been girdling the continent with links of fraternity, 
 has whipped two supreme courts and forever, as long as 
 time shall last, at least during good behavior, she has the 
 drop on the United States Supreme Court by numbering 
 
172 SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 among her members three of the Supreme Court judges, — 
 Matthews, Harlan and Woods: but I do not desire you to 
 think so highly of our Beta Theta Pi, but that one very 
 large corner of your heart will be left for the Minnesota 
 Association, to whose members I now give you a formal 
 introduction. 
 
 [Here followed brief personal allusions.] 
 
 The Minnesota Association, gentlemen, is an established 
 fact. It has to-night formally taken its place among the 
 great events of history and will "go down" with the rest. 
 What it may accomplish in the future may be judged from 
 its brief but brilliant past. But a few weeks ago a small 
 company of men, strangers to one another, met to take 
 measures for organizing this State Association. Hardly 
 any three of those who sit before me had at that time an 
 acquaintance with one another. Since then the leaven has 
 been at work, and to-night we clasp fraternal hands and 
 meet no more as strangers. What in the future this Asso- 
 ciation may do in strengthening this friendship, in welcom- 
 ing to our State others who will come, in affording a chan- 
 nel by which we can communicate with the general frater- 
 nity, in opening to our eyes the growth and importance of 
 Beta Theta Pi, I leave for you to conjecture. 
 
 I need not say that no organization can long continue 
 which depends for its support alone upon its officers. Each 
 of us has a place and a duty, and yet Beta Theta Pi adds 
 no new duties to our lives. We are all bound by that 
 greatest of all laws, to love our neighbors as ourselves, — 
 a law written in the Book, in nature, and in every man's 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 173 
 
 conscience. Beta Theta Pi teaches this great truth. Your 
 allegiance to her does not bid you take poison or hug a 
 snake to your bosom, but it teaches, and the lesson is worth 
 the learning, that there are fewer snakes than we are wont 
 to think, A man grows rusty and sour from isolation ; he 
 should gather closer about him his circle of friends. He 
 should not burrow into his business and draw after him his 
 petty possessions — viewing the world as through a knot 
 hole ; it is such men who scowl at fraternities, — lean, sour, 
 moldy, disappointed men — to whom friendship and brother- 
 hood are obsolete words, coined for fools and the weak- 
 minded. To such men, you and I are only useful to the 
 extent that we may render them a service. The word fra- 
 ternity should be to us a grand word, — not only to college 
 boys, but for mature men. It is the word that is to banish 
 discord the world over. That word once grasped in all its 
 meaning, and wars will cease. 
 
 Fraternity, then, is the force that is to bind together this 
 Association. Its coherency depends upon no laws, and 
 upon no outward force, but upon the spirit of its member- 
 ship. Our meetings must be held at long intervals, and 
 our organization will have few outward signs of life, yet 
 the interests and purposes of the Minnesota Association 
 of Beta Theta Pi will be fully subserved, if the principles 
 of fraternity find a lodgment in every heart and an exem- 
 plification in every life. 
 
ADDRESS TO NEWSBOYS. 
 
 ADDRESS DELIVERED SUNDAY EVEISriNG, MAR. 6, i8g8, 
 
 TO THE DETROIT NEWSBOYS' ASSOCIATION 
 
 AND THEIR FRIENDS. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, Newsboys, Ladies and Gentlemen : — I must 
 come before you with an apology. I know that apologies 
 are distasteful to boys. If there is anything that a boy does 
 not like to do himself, it is to apologize, and he admires it 
 just as much in another. However, your chairman has 
 placed me in an embarrassing position. He has introduced 
 me as one of your friends. You may judge how much of a 
 friend I am when I tell you that this is the first time that I 
 have met with you. I must therefore apologize for not being 
 the friend that I should have been, and sort of take back the 
 apology by saying that I have been your friend at a distance; 
 I have known of your work and been interested in it, as have 
 all other citizens of our good city; I have been proud of the 
 strength and influence of your organization; I have always 
 been proud of the kind of boys who sell papers on our streets 
 and I have often said that I thought the newsboys of Detroit 
 were the best behaved and best regulated set of little young- 
 sters in the world. I know, now, tliat you will accept my 
 apology. 
 
 I am interested in boys; first, because I was once a boy 
 myself, and that, too, not very long ago, and second, because 
 I own a boy of my own. You may not be particularly inter- 
 ested in my boyhood, but I am going to say that I started in 
 
 174 
 
SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 175 
 
 life as a merchant at the tender age of nine. I kept store in 
 my father's barn, and stocked it with all kinds of things from 
 my mother's pantry; I bought eggs from the neighbors' 
 boys, paying for them at the rate of one cent each, and sold 
 them to my mother at two cents each, making, as you will 
 see, a good round profit I had a setting hen which was about 
 to come "off her perch" with a brood of chicks, when one 
 day there appeared in my store a lad bearing thirteen nice, 
 fresh eggs, for which I paid him one cent apiece. I sold 
 them to my mother, but she never used them, the discovery 
 having been made that my hen had lost her eggs. My 
 father concluded that I was not shrewd enough for a mer- 
 cantile career so I closed up shop, — made an assignment, as 
 it were. I then went into the chicken business, and the 
 height of my ambition was to be a successful poultry-man. 
 In order that my business might be conducted systemat- 
 ically and successfully, I obtained from a merchant one of 
 his old ledgers, — such a one as you have seen in the count- 
 ing rooms of the big merchants on Jefferson avenue. I 
 opened a ledger account with every hen, putting at the head 
 of each page the name of a hen, and then I spent my time 
 watching the hens lay and crediting each hen with the num- 
 ber of eggs she produced. You will therefore see that I 
 have had considerable business experience in mercantile and 
 manufacturing lines, so that I may well be interested in 
 you young merchants. 
 
 I have been somewhat troubled to know just what to say 
 to you. From the newspapers in the past years I have gath- 
 ered that the average speaker who comes before you tells 
 you to be good, to be honest, to be true, not to swear, lie, 
 
176 SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 cheat, or steal, but love your little brothers and sisters, and 
 obey your fathers and mothers. All of this is very good, but 
 I imagine that it grows a little tiresome to you, so I 
 thought I would not preach you any sermons. I suppose, 
 too, that you have had told to you the stories of all the little 
 boys who have become great men, and were I to begin tell- 
 ing you about a boy who walked down the streets of Phil- 
 adelphia with a loaf of bread under his arm, you would im- 
 mediately sing out, Benjamin Franklin; and were I to start 
 to say something about a canal boat you would shout, Gar- 
 field; and were I to say anything about splitting rails you 
 would cry out, Lincoln ; and if I were to say anything about 
 hatchets and cherry trees you would all sing out, Washing- 
 ton; so I would have a serious time making up a speech 
 about great little boys who became great men. 
 
 I will have to take some text, however, so I will talk to 
 you a few moments on "Find Out What You Are Good 
 For." 
 
 You know, of course, that on every ship that sails the seas 
 there is carried a needle which is guarded with the greatest 
 care ("the compass" — many voices). That is right, and it 
 pomts always in one direction — to one star ("North star" — 
 many voices). Correct! No matter which way the ship is 
 going, no matter whether the sea be calm or rough, peaceful 
 or stormy, that needle always points to the north. Now, in 
 every little boy, if we could but know it and could see it, 
 there is way down deep, a little needle that points to his des- 
 tiny. Every little boy before me was created for some pur- 
 pose in life, and I have come to tell you that it is the duty of 
 every little fellow here, and it is also the duty of every little 
 
SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 177 
 
 fellow's father and mother, to find out just in what direction 
 that needle points. In some instances it is very hard to find 
 this out; in other instances it is very easy. It is not very 
 bard to find out what that little boy is good for who just a 
 moment ago spoke to you from this stage; that little boy 
 has a wonderful memory, and a wonderful command of 
 language, and would make an orator; the needle points in 
 that direction just as surely as does the compass needle point 
 to the north. There is not one boy in a hundred thousand 
 that could do what he has just done. He will be untrue to 
 himself, untrue to his friends, untrue to his Maker, 
 unless he develops that wonderful talent that he has. 
 That little girl who just sang to you has a beautiful 
 voice, uncultivated but naturally sweet and resonant. If cul- 
 tivated she can sometime surprise and delight thousands of 
 men and women just as she has delighted a few hundred 
 boys and girls to-night. She will do wrong if she does not 
 recognize the direction in which her needle points, and her 
 parents, if she has parents, will do wrong if they do not make 
 every effort in their power to cultivate and bring to its full- 
 est fruition the gift that God has planted in her. But with 
 most of these boys and girls it is very difficult to find out just 
 what they are good for. How many hundreds of thousands of 
 boys and girls grow up to be men and women without ever 
 finding out this secret ! And so there are thousands of law- 
 yers that ought to be farmers, and, shall I say it, thousands 
 of farmers who ought to be lawyers ; lots of cooks that ought 
 to be seamstresses, and seamstresses that ought to be cooks; 
 artists that ought to be blacksmiths and blacksmiths that 
 ought to be artists, etc., etc. 
 
178 SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 I am inclined to think that most boys know better than do 
 their parents what they are good for. Very often a Httle 
 boy has a capacity for improvement in certain Hnes and he 
 does not get that instruction because his parents want him 
 to be something else, something other than he wants to be or 
 oitght to be. Little boys are repressed and held in and 
 turned away from things which they naturally do well, and 
 are compelled to do things which they can never do other 
 than poorly, and which God never intended they should do. 
 
 Let me tell you a story about a man of whom perhaps you 
 never heard. His name was Thomas Edward, When he 
 was a little boy, just able to walk, he ran away from home, 
 and when his parents and neighbors came to look for him 
 they found him in a pig-sty fast asleep among a litter of lit- 
 tle pigs and an old sow that was too fierce for grown people 
 to come near. He developed a great interest in animals. He 
 usea to come into the house with his pockets full of worms, 
 insects, snakes, frogs, crickets, and everything that he could 
 pick up, and let them loose in the house and watch them 
 jump about. After one escapade Hke this his mother tied 
 him to the leg of a table, and when her back was turned he 
 pulled the table over to the fire, and burnt ofif the rope, made 
 his escape, and brought back again that night more animals 
 to terrify the household. Then she hid his clothes and he 
 wrapped himself up in his mother's skirt and made another 
 expedition, this time bringing home a wasp's nest full of live 
 wasps, which did not seem to mind him at all, and did not 
 try to sting him. Thea he was sent to school, but he did not 
 succeed in school any better than he had at home, in doing 
 what his parents wanted him to do. While the teacher was 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 179 
 
 opening the school with prayer a jackdaw peeped out of 
 the boy's pocket and cawed lustily. The teacher sent Thomas 
 home. He was sent to another school and a live centipede 
 was found one day in the desk of one of the boys and the 
 only boy who knew where it came from was Thomas Ed- 
 ward. And so at six years of age he was turned loose on the 
 street without his even knowing his letters. But once out 
 from under parental care and discipline he was free to do as 
 he pleased, and he lived most of his time among animals. He 
 apprenticed himself to a cobbler and learned the shoe trade, 
 but spent only enough time every day at the bench to earn 
 his living and the rest of his time roamed about the 
 country picking up all manner of little animals and bringing 
 them home and studying them. Finally, when he grew to be 
 a man, he was the possessor of one of the most splendid col- 
 lections of animals that anyone ever had. Then he made up 
 his mind that he must learn how to read and write in order 
 that he might tell the world about what he had learned, and 
 so he sold four cartloads of his specimens for $100 with 
 which to pay a teacher to teach him to read and write. Then 
 he began to study, arrange, classify, and write, until final- 
 ly he became one of the greatest naturalists the world has 
 ever known. Had that boy's parents and his teachers recog- 
 nized which way the needle pointed in that boy they could 
 have developed a greater naturalist than Agassiz, but they 
 did not recognize it and so you never have heard of Thomas 
 Edward as you might have heard of him had he been given 
 the proper chance. 
 
 Why doesn't the father do with the boy as does the man 
 who owns a young colt? If he discovers that the colt is 
 
i8o SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES, 
 
 quiet and gentle of disposition, is a "nice looker" and of the 
 proper size, and color, and all that, he says, "I will make a 
 'ladies' horse' out of him." So he trains him for ladies to 
 drive. If he is a good, strong horse with big legs and 
 muscles, he says, "I will make a draft horse out of him," and 
 so he trains him to draw heavy loads and sells him at a big 
 price to a man who wants him to draw a big truck; if he is a 
 particularly intelligent horse and can do tricks, is quick to 
 obey and showy, he says, "I will make a trick horse out of 
 him," and he trains him to the doing of all manner of funny 
 things and finally sells him to a show-man for a good round 
 price and he becomes a show horse. Perhaps the colt has 
 remarkable speed and is built to run; then he makes a race 
 horse out of him. Not so with our boys and girls. Our par- 
 ents do not study us enough ; they let things go too much by 
 chance. If we develop a fancy for music and can play a lit- 
 tle on almost any kind of an instrument, if we love to hear 
 music, and to make it, we are early taught that we make too 
 n:uch noise about the house, and we are scolded and slam- 
 med around because we are trying to do that which God in- 
 tended us to do. Then we are set to work doing something 
 which is contrary to our disposition and to our talents. 
 
 I suppose I am making you boys unruly and that you will 
 all go home to-night and tell your parents that they don't 
 know what is good for you; not so. I do not want to make 
 you undutiful, but I want every one of you boys to figure out 
 in his own mind what he is good for, and then make every 
 eflfort possible in life to develop your natural talents. 
 
 In most cases, however, a boy's talent will assert itself 
 despite obstacles, and you can usually trust a boy to bring 
 
SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. i8i 
 
 about what in the nature of things ought to be. Be sure, 
 however, that you do not spoil the job, boys, by bad habits, 
 and bad companions, and bad reading; and if you find, when 
 you come to get a place in life, that you do not fill the place 
 very well, and that you are not satisfied with yourself and 
 others are not satisfied with you, don't make up your mind 
 that you are not good for anything. Some time ago an em- 
 ploye was turned out of his place in one of our large mercan- 
 tile houses. Going to his employer the poor fellow said, 
 "Well, I must be good for some thing." The employer re- 
 plied, "You cannot sell goods ; you have tried that and you 
 have failed." "But I can do something," he repeated. "What 
 can you do?" said the employer. "I don't know, but I know 
 that I can do something." Impressed with the earnestness of 
 the young man, his employer gave him a subordinate posi- 
 tion in the office, — that of copying work the bookkeeper 
 gave him to do. He developed such accuracy and speed, 
 such neatness and dispatch, in this work that he soon came 
 to be assistant bookkeeper, and finally head bookkeeper, and 
 at last managing partner of the great establishment. There 
 was something that that young man could do and it was only 
 necessary to find out what the something was in order that 
 he might be a great success. 
 
 Now, boys, I am going to bid you good-night. You have 
 been very patient, and you have listened to me as if you really 
 intended to follow my advice. I have not lived very long 
 myself, but I believe it is good advice.- I am sure that I wish 
 that every one of you might become a good and great man. 
 In this free country of ours, you have the opportunity. You 
 are all little patriots and love your country, as I could see 
 
1 82 SFEAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 by your splendid applause when "Old Glory" was 
 brought upon the stage, and when you sang with 
 such heartiness the "Star Spangled Banner." I hope 
 we shall not have war with Spain, but if we do 
 I hope that every little newsboy in Detroit will be 
 loyal to the flag, and if he cannot go to war he can at least 
 shout for those who do. Whether in our bodies runs the 
 blood of the Italian, the Irish, the German, the Pole, the 
 Dane, the Swede, the Scotch, or the English, let us remem- 
 ber that we are all Americans and all for the Red, White and 
 Blue. Good-night. 
 
PRESENTATION SPEECH.* 
 
 Mr. President and Fellow Members: 
 
 The old adage, "troubles never come singly," has 
 been verified, in that you are to have two speeches from 
 me within as many months. I sincerely sympathize with 
 you as I am sure you are not the only sufferer. My only 
 apology must be that I have been commanded to talk to 
 you again, and in this day of wars and rumors of wars, it 
 behooves every man to be a soldier and obey. I some times 
 wish that I had not been educated to the law, for to have 
 been so educated has brought its penalty, in that I have 
 been required to talk when I ought, and would prefer, to 
 keep still. I presume that this requirement upon the pro- 
 fession is a part of the "woe unto you, lawyers" that was 
 uttered by the Man of Galilee ; and yet to show that it was 
 not meant that utter and dire woe should always and 
 ever follow the profession, it may be said that St. Paul was 
 a lawyer and that in his letter to Titus he requested him to 
 bring with him Zena, the lawyer, and to see that nothing 
 was lacking for his comfort. 
 
 It particularly behooves us, as members of the Detroit 
 Credit Men's Association, at this time, to be loyal in the 
 discharge of duties put upon us by our worthy commander, 
 
 *Delivered on the occasion of the presentation of a diamond 
 ring to D. C. Delamater, president of the Detroit Ctedit Men's 
 Association. Tuesday evening, March iS'.h, at a banquet at the 
 Russell House, Detroit, Mich. 
 
 183 
 
1 84 SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 as in the coming months our fidelity to the cause will be 
 put to a severe test. I am glad to see that the indications 
 are that our Association will not be found wanting when 
 that time comes, though I am free to say that we shall soon 
 need to close up our ranks and look out for stragglers and 
 deserters. I am not sure but what our Membership Com- 
 mittee should look well to the recruiting office, as our force, 
 good so far as it goes, is inadequate for the great task of 
 caring for a National Convention composed of such men 
 as represent the National Association of Credit Men. 
 
 In casting about in my mind for a subject on which I 
 might address you this evening I could think of none more 
 appropriate to the occasion than this sentiment, — "Our 
 President— De Witt C. Delamater/' 
 
 It is a peculiarly fitting time to offer this sentiment as 
 out of the bigness of his heart we are privileged to enjoy 
 this season of social intercourse, in this elegant hostelry, at 
 his expense. To say that we appreciate this delicate com- 
 pliment to the Association and its members, is to express 
 very feebly our real feelings. It is easy to be generous, 
 open-hearted, open-handed, and friendly, when it costs 
 nothing; but when a man voluntarily goes down into his 
 pockets for the price of an act of courtesy and yields some- 
 thing of a sacrifice in order to do a kindness, it means 
 something more. Such favors are richer and sweeter than 
 those which pass current between man and man as matters 
 of course, which cost no thought, no effort, no sacrifice. 
 Like the waters that come from the deepest wells, such 
 acts sparkle and cheer. You remember the old well in 
 
SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 185 
 
 the old home, its bucket and its windlass, and its long 
 chain which was indeed an endless one; you recall the 
 labored creak of the crank as you turned and turned and 
 finally brought to the surface the sparkling treasure that, 
 gurgling down your parched throat, was to you like the 
 nectar of the Gods. It cost something to get it, but how 
 infinitely purer and better it was when it touched your lips 
 than the insipid surface water caught in barrels from the 
 eaves, or stored in cisterns, or stagnating in little streams 
 upon the surface. So, that courtesy and kindness which 
 has cost its giver something is peculiarly refreshing and 
 inspiring. Such acts are akin to those of mercy, for even 
 though done to those whose necessities do not require 
 them, yet their quality is not strained; they drop as the 
 gentle rain from heaven on the place beneath; they are 
 twice blessed, they bless him that gives and him that takes. 
 It is fitting therefore, that I propose to you the toast, 
 "Our President, De Witt C. Delamater, May He Return 
 Late to Heaven," and I ask you to drink it with me stand- 
 ing. 
 
 Fill with me the rosy wine, 
 Call a toast, a toast divine; 
 Give the Muse's choicest flame, 
 Delamater be the name; 
 Then thou mayest freely boast. 
 Thou hast given a peerless toasi 
 
 This is a good time to consider one feature of our organ- 
 ization which we are liable to lose sight of, viz., the social 
 
i86 SFRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 feature of it. I am aware that in this day of multiplicity 
 of organizations, this day of hurry and bustle of social 
 life, the majority of us have little need of an additional 
 stimulus to sociability. The common complaint now is that 
 social functions are crowding out the more sober and sub- 
 stantial things that should engage our attention, such as 
 reading, study, self-improvement, church and family duties. 
 I grant this, and yet I claim that there is a need of the 
 cultivation, among credit men, of a mutual interest and a 
 mutual regard. No class of persons needs it more. The 
 business of the credit man is a cold, calculating, one. He 
 stands as a sentinel on the watch-tower of the business 
 world, requiring, from every one who approaches, a pass- 
 port of good character and financial responsibility; with- 
 out the talismanic word he bars the entrance. This duty 
 makes him cold, calculating, and suspicious. By long ex- 
 perience he has learned to discount reputation. This habit 
 of mind growing upon him stamps his character ; it freezes 
 the young blood in his veins, dries up the wells of his sym- 
 pathy, and obliterates from his life that element of uncalcu- 
 lating trust and confidence, that, however disastrous it may 
 be in business, is yet the chief charm of social intercourse. 
 I count it well worth the expense and effort required to 
 maintain this organization that credit men are brought 
 together and compelled by this means to know one another 
 in some other relation than as business rivals and com- 
 batants. It is for this reason more than for any other, that 
 I count this Association fortunate in having at its head a. 
 man with the qualities of heart and head that are possessed 
 
SPRAGUE'S SPEECHES. 187 
 
 by our President. I am glad to say that I am not the only 
 one who has recognized in Mr. Delamater a leader worthy 
 of our esteem and our affection. He stands head and 
 shoulders above us all in his uniform courtesy, his kindly 
 patience, his unswerving fidelity to our interests. Recog- 
 nizing in him those noble qualities of mind and heart that 
 deserve preferment, we at once on the organization of this 
 Association placed him at its head, and with a unanimity, 
 gratifying alike to him and to us, we have decreed that he 
 shall continue as our leader during this, the third year of 
 the Association's life. Most men would consider this a 
 sufficient compliment, and I doubt not that our President 
 has felt in view of this distinction a degree of satisfaction 
 and some little re-payment for his time and thought given 
 to the work. Members of the Association, however, have 
 not been satisfied to let their appreciation be thus measured, 
 for in the gift to you, Mr. President, of three terms of office, 
 we have had a selfish motive : we chose you, not so much 
 by way of appreciation of your character as for what you 
 could do for us. But the old Roman Seneca says : "There 
 is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers." Permit 
 us, therefore, to present to you a gift from which we ex- 
 pect no return, excepting your kindly remembrance of the 
 men who make it and of the occasion which brings it forth. 
 Perhaps no words are harder to utter than words such as 
 I would speak to you as I present to you this token, not 
 because thoughts are wanting but because the deepest 
 sentiments are those which spring the slowest to the lips. 
 This ring must, however, be to you a symbol. Our regard 
 
1 88 SPR AGUE'S SPEECHES. 
 
 for you shines in the light that gleams from its diamond. 
 It knows no beginning or ending ; it is therefore a continu- 
 ing and hallowing pledge of that respect which we owe to 
 you, that must continue through your life. As the gold 
 that composes it wears away, as it must in coming years, 
 may the hand which it graces be more and more filled with 
 gold, which at the bidding of a generous heart shall ever 
 open liberally as it has in the past. 
 
 "The summers may come and the summers may go, 
 And the winters may whiten the head with their snow, 
 But let no earnest of joy in the heavens above 
 Be more sure than that ring and its cycle of love." 
 
Joseph H. Vance. 
 
 Law Librarian 
 
 of ttie University 
 
 of Mlclilgan. 
 
 We have made arrangements with Prof. Vance, the author of this little book 
 on Jurisdiction, by which we have become the owners of the last edition of it. 
 The book is used in the Law Department of the University of Michigan. It is 
 built for students and practicing lawyers. The following headings indicate its 
 contents . 
 
 JURISDICTION Defined, Judicial Power, Courts Distinguished, Elements of 
 Jurisdiction, Jurisdiction of the subject-matter, Jurisdiction of the person, 
 Points to be Determined Before Commencing an Action at Law, Process, 
 Summons, When Suit is Considered as Commenced, To Whom Process Should 
 be Issued, How Service Must be Made, Service on Corporations, Attempt to 
 Avoid Service. Officer Serving His Own Process, The Return and the Object of 
 the Return, Amending the Return, The Abuse of Process, Appearance, Special 
 Appearance, How Defendant May Confer Jurisdiction, Appearance by Attor- 
 ney, Appearance of Infants, Appearance by Corporations, EfEect of With- 
 drawal of Plea, etc. 
 
 — ^PAPER, $1.00. 
 
 iinirir 
 
 pEDERAL JURISDICTION 
 AND PROCEDURE. 
 
 BT 
 
 Hon.Wm. A. Maury, 
 
 Ex-Assistant 
 Attorn ey-General 
 of the United States. 
 
 This work is a monograph of some seventy-five pages, explaining fully and 
 clearly the subject of Federal Jurisdiction and Procedure as modified by Acts 
 of Congress of March 3d, 1891, and March 3d, 1887, corrected by the Act of 
 August 13th, 1888. To these acts have been added the several provisions of the 
 Constitution bearing on the Judicial Power, and certain provisions of the Re- 
 vised Statutes appertaining to that power and regulating the Appellate power 
 of the Supreme Court, together with the rules of that Court which supplement 
 the last mentioned provisions. 
 
 This book is used in the Columbian University Law School, in which 
 Gen. Maury is one of the faculty. 
 
 Contains a very valuable Appendix, giving Forms. 
 
 PAPER, $I.OO. 
 
 The Collector 
 
 PuBLSSHmG Co., 
 
 Booksellers and Publishers, 
 
 DETROIT, niCH. 
 
Prague's 
 
 If 
 
 tS A collection of after-dinner speeches, addresses, and || 
 
 ^ miscellaneous writings of Wm, C. Sprague, contain- « 
 
 I? ing about 215 pages, handsomely bound, deckle edges, 2 
 
 Jf gilt top. Price, $1.50, delivered. 3t 
 
 Jl William C. Sprague is president of the Sprague Cor- 5 
 
 if respondence School of Law, Detroit, and editor-in-chief S 
 
 j° of T/ie Collector and Coimnercial Lawyer, and of The S 
 
 ft Law Studenfs Helper, and author of several books ^ 
 
 Jf that have proved exceptionally popular among the law- 5 
 
 If yers and young men of America. As an after-dinner ^ 
 
 K and occasional speaker he ranks among the very best ^ 
 
 ^ of the younger men now before the public. 5 
 
 jf This collection embraces speeches to Lawyers, Credit- X 
 
 K Men, Public School Teachers, Churches, Societies, Ma- 3r 
 
 9m ^ 
 
 H sons. College Fraternities, Editors, Chautauqua Assem- « 
 
 ^ blies, Newsboys, Young Men's Clubs, Miscellaneous % 
 
 ^ After-Dinner Speeches, etc., etc. ^ 
 
 It* They are not merely -such speeches as you will de- 5 
 
 5 light to read — they are that, and more ; they are the % 
 
 K kind of speeches that will help you when you have jj 
 
 If similar occasions to prepare for. They are the kind of S 
 
 g speeches that have life, vim, vigor, virility, spirit in 5 
 
 jl^ them, the kind that please and win an audience. They 
 
 if teem with sound sense, brilliant wit, humor that is 
 
 If catching, 'and eloquence of the highest order. 
 
 J^ The book will please you, and help you in a hundred 
 
 ^ emergencies. Order at once. 
 
 ar 
 
 s 
 
 % The Collector Publishing Company, 5 
 
 K DETROIT, MICHIGAN. j* 
 
speeches and 
 Speech Making. 
 
 By judge J. W. DONOVAN. 
 
 No book of interest to lawyers, law students, or young 
 men generally, published within recent years, has obtained 
 a more immediate and wide-spread popularity than Judge 
 Donovan's "Speeches and Speech Making." It seems to 
 have made an instant hit. This is doubtless because it is a 
 practical book, and gives ideas, suggestions and helps both 
 as to preparing and delivering speeches. Judge Donovan 
 has sought in writing this book to give young men who 
 are ambitious to become speakers something that will be 
 of practical help to them in attaining that end. In ad- 
 dition to the ideas, and suggestions as to the preparation 
 and delivery of speeches, it contains examples of speeches 
 for different occasions, and altogether contains many helps 
 for one wishing to become a successful speaker. Men who 
 are frequently called upon to make speeches, and what 
 lawyer, young or old, is not, will find this book valuable. 
 A man who intends or expects to make many speeches 
 cannot begin his preparation too early, for when called 
 upon he has no time to prepare, and must depend upon the 
 preparation of times past. This book will aid one to prepare 
 for such occasions. The sooner a man begins to prepare, 
 the better, for he cannot become a good piiblic speaker 
 at a bound. Public speakers are made as well as born. 
 
 HANDSOMELY BOUND IN CLOTH 
 $1.50, DELIVERED «>s«ca3w 
 
 Address 
 
 The Collector Publishing Co., 
 
 DETROIT, RilCHIGAN, 
 
^to 
 
 %um ^tu£etxt^6 
 
 The Law Student's Helper is a montlily publication con- 
 taining from 30 to 50 pages per montli of bright original matter 
 of interest to young men, and especially to law students and 
 lawyers. It is tlie organ of the law students' associations and 
 law clubs of the country, and is the only paper containing news 
 of the doings of law students in colleges and clubs. It contains 
 a splendid resume from month to month of current events of 
 interest to young men. It is educative in its character and seeks 
 to do for young men what the Youth's Companion does for boys 
 and girls. It is the strongest and best paper for young men that 
 has ever been put in their hands. Its success has been marked — 
 its subscription list reaching the highest point ever reached by 
 a law publication. The paper is not for law students only, 
 but for young men generally. Every page of it is of interest 
 and profit to them. It is not built for the purpose of merely 
 filling subscription orders, but for the purpose of instructing 
 and elevating its readers. That it does this is evidenced by 
 hundreds of testimonials from leading educators throughout the 
 country who read it and recommend it to students, and from the 
 students themselves. 
 
 Sample copy, 10 cents. 
 
 Subscription rate, per annum, $1.00. 
 
 Published by 
 
 THE COLLECTOR PUBLISHING CO., 
 
 DETROIT, MICHIGAN. 
 
Eloquence and Repartee in the 
 American Congress . . . 
 
 By Wm. C. SPRAQUE. 
 
 A book in which the editor has collected many of the most inter- 
 esting and notable events of a particularly notable Congress, 
 viz : the Forty-Second Congress. This Congress sat during the 
 famous Reconstruction Period, and the ability of its members, 
 together wicli the importance of the questions then agitating 
 the country, united to produce many exciting scenes, many 
 great debates, many flights of eloquence, and many flashes of wit and repartee 
 between the members, among whom were some of the greatest men whose 
 names illumine our history. To the student of American history, and to the 
 student of eloquence, this book will have an absorbing interest. Illustrated 
 with numerous half-tone portraits. 
 
 Handsomely <Ji I PZ.r\ 
 
 bouMd in Cloth, ^> I bsJKJ. 
 
 THE COLLECTOR PUBLISHING CO., 
 
 Publishers and Booksellers, DETROIT, niCH. 
 
 <S^ . 
 
 Flashes of Wit from 
 
 Bench and Bar . . . "' '"" ' """^°' 
 
 "Much given to speech and seasoned anecdote. 
 And wit and repartee of Bench and Bar." 
 
 — Valentine. 
 
 THIS is one of the brightest books that has been issued in recent 
 months. The nature of its contents is amply indicated by its title. 
 Every page literally flashes and scintillates with the ready wit of 
 some leader of the bar or some brilliant occupant of the bench. Every 
 one of its two hundred pages contains many hearty laughs for the reader. 
 Such a fund of anecdote and story will not be found within the covers of 
 any other book now on the market. It contains some of the purest, 
 brightest and happiest examples of wit and humor ever collected by an 
 appreciative editor. One wbo often speaks in public will find these stories 
 mirth-provoking, and every one knows the value of a taking story properly 
 interjected into a public speech, or in conversation. 
 
 Mandsomely bound in Cloth. 
 
 PKICE. »1.50 DEIilVEREB. 
 
 Address, THE COLLECTOR PUBLISHING CO., Detroit. Mich. 
 
FOSTER'S FIBST BO 
 
 JUST ISSUED BY THE 
 
 Collector Publishing Co., Detroit, ilicb. 
 
 Al30ut 500 Pages, Ptdl Law Eheep. PHICB, $4.00. DELIVERBD. 
 
 Tb* Book is best described by its Preface, trhlch rre quote entire : 
 
 FOR many years the author has felt that there ought to be a practice book 
 especially adapted to the needs of young lawyers, containing answers to 
 the numberless questions arising in the practice of the law, and direc- 
 tions, suggestions, and definite information along practical lines that are not 
 contained in law books generally, or, if contained in them, so hidden as not to 
 be of easy access. Questions relating to court practice, and particularly with 
 reference to the commencement of actions, are fraught with difficulty to the 
 student entering upon the practice of the law, however thorough his prepara- 
 tion in its theory. This book is offered as a practical guide and handbook that 
 will serve to meet the need so long felt for something that will enable the young 
 lawyer to commence and carry on his cases with reasonable security against 
 making some one or more of the many fatal blunders which young practitioners 
 are liable to make and from which old practitioners are not entirely exempt. 
 In preparing this book I have purposely avoided, as far as possible, the discus- 
 sion of substantive law. Necessarily, I have stated the well established rules 
 of law and practice, but, where I have done so, I have not entered into a discus- 
 sion of the reasons upon which such rules are founded, my object being to pro- 
 vide a book that should point out the course to be pursued in given cases, and 
 the rules to be followed, the dangers to be expected, and the methods of avoid- 
 ing them. 
 
 In the citation of authorities reference has been made to leading cases only, 
 or to cases which most clearly illustrate or strongly fortify the position taken. 
 
 Each case has been carefully selected with regard to its special fitness for 
 this purpose. The style of the book, I believe, to be justified by its purpose and 
 the necessity of impressing by the most direct and forcible language the im- 
 portance of the points made. 
 
 Each form of action is discussed separately and in order, from the prelim- 
 inary Steps necessary before the commencement of the action to its terminaimg 
 Steps. Pleading and practice under the common law, undsr the code and in 
 equity, are treated after this manner. All special proceedings, such as attach- 
 ment, arrest, garnishment, mandamus, habeas corpus, etc., are fully discussed 
 and the line of procedure in each carefully outlined. 
 
 Carefully selected forms are introduced in their appropriate places, for some 
 of which I am indebted to the well known works of Chitty, Story and Oliver. 
 
 I may be pardoned for expressing the belief that there is much contained in 
 this book in the way of practical suggestion and information that will not be 
 found in any other book. I send it forth as the result of experience, and as 
 such a book as would have saved me endless time and confusion, had it been in 
 my possession in the first few years of my practice. 
 
 Lemuel H. Foster. 
 
 Detroit, Michigan, December ist, 1897. 
 
Justices of the Supreme Court of the United 5tates. 
 
 Group picture Riving all the Justices who ever sat on the 
 Supreme Bench of the United States, with the date of their 
 birth, death and appointment, and the State from which ap- 
 pointed, making a pictorial history of the c^^urt. A fine arto- 
 type, making a picture 19x34 inches, printed on heavy paper, 
 with wide margins. This picture is the work of the celebrated 
 artist Bierstadt, and is printed in steel plate ink. Very hand- 
 some. $7.00 delivered. 
 
 One Hundred and Portyfour Eminent American, Engflisb 
 and Canadian Lawyers. 
 
 Two fine engravings, 28x38 inches, with each portrait SixSj- 
 inches. With these engravings go a two-volume work with the 
 Life Sketches, Thoughts, etc., of the lawyers whose portraits 
 are given In the engravings. Regular price, $15.00. Our price 
 $10.50 delivered. 
 
 The Present Supreme Court of the United States. 
 
 This is a photograph, 144^x20^ inches, mounted on boards 
 20x34 inches. Gives the United States Supreme Court as now 
 constituted. Price, $3.00. 
 
 Blackstone. 
 
 Steel engraving by John Sartain. 12x15 inches, printed on 
 heavy paper, with wide margins. This is a very fine portrait, 
 but we are able to furnish it while our supply lasts, lor $3.00 
 delivered. 
 
 Joseph H. Choate. 
 
 Photogravure, 8x6^ inches, printed on heavy paper, with 
 wide margins. $1.00. 
 
 Frederici< R. Coudert. 
 
 Companion piece to the Choate porti-ait. $1.00. 
 
 The Present Justices of the United States Supreme Court. 
 
 Half-tones, each 5x3j inches, on good paper, with ample 
 margins. 50 cents each. 
 
 Chief Justice Marshall. 
 
 Full length portrait, 16^x10^ inches. Very handsome. 
 Price, $3.00. 
 
 Chancellor James Kent. 
 
 Fine steel engraving, 15x10 inches, printed on fine heavy 
 paper, 23x80 inches. Very handsome office portrait. Price, 
 $5.00, deUvered. 
 
 COLLECTOR PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
 
 Detroit, Michig:an. 
 
study 
 
 The Sprague Correspondence School 
 of Law, of Detroit, Michigan, pre- 
 pares you right in your own home 
 for examination for admission to 
 the bar. It selects the proper text 
 books; it mapsout thepi-oper course; 
 it helps you over the rough places; 
 it shows you how to learn every- 
 thing worth learning, and how to 
 avoid the non-essential matter ; it 
 
 Law 
 
 gives you thorough 
 examinations, and 
 fits you in every 
 way for active prac- 
 tice. For those 
 who do not feel pre- 
 
 pared to take up a 
 regular course in 
 law, it furnishes a 
 Preparatory Course 
 of three months, which every 
 man and woman, and every 
 boy and girl whether propos- 
 ing to practise law or not, 
 should study. It also fur- 
 nishes a Business Law Course, 
 the most thorough course on 
 Business Law that can be had 
 anywhere Whether or not 
 
 you desire to practice law, you should 
 enroll yourself as a student in this 
 School, and use your spare moments 
 in useful study along practical lines. 
 The law forms an exceedingly interest- 
 ing study, and is a splendid course for 
 general culture. A handsome cata- 
 logue with testimonials from prac- 
 tising attorneys, free. Remember 
 that our system only requires that 
 you devote to it your spare moments. 
 
 Address Sprague Correspondence School of Law, 
 
 Home 
 
 Telephone Building. DETROIT, MICH. 
 
BOOKS 
 
 ...BY... 
 
 JUDGE J. W. DOHOVAH. 
 
 BOOKS THAT MAY BE TERMED 
 SIDE-LIGHTS ON THE PRACTICE 
 OF LAWx^^NVALUABLE AND IN- 
 TENSELY INTERESTING. :x :x :x 
 
 17,000 SOLD. 
 
 nr^ A ' /'^/>« 41-M'f Contains the gist of cases won by tact courage 
 
 1 aCX 111 v^OvI'lrT and eloquence, with trial rules and able ad'' 
 
 =^======== vice of ingenious advocates and trial lawyers. 
 
 Fourth revised and enlarged edition. Sheep, $1,00. 
 
 NEW AND VERY DRAMATIC. 
 
 Qlr-Sti -S-r^ T^**-5<a1c» Contains a variety of civil and criminal cases 
 Oivlii m 1 JTlalS won by the art of advocates, with some of the 
 = skill of Webster, Choate, Beach, Butler, Curtis, 
 Fountain, and others, given in sketches of their work and trial stories. 
 Sheep, SLOO. 
 
 FORTY GREAT TRIALS. 
 
 Modern Jury 1 rials and Advocates and^lioquence 
 
 ^ = of a hundred 
 
 famous lawyers, as brought out in the forty great trials of twenty-'five years. 
 Intensely interesting to the student of eloquence and the art of trying cases. 
 Fourth edition, 700 pages, Law Sheep, $4.50. 
 
 "Judge Donovan is the author of those exceptionally popular 
 books, 'Modern Jury Trials,' 'Tact in Court,' and 'Skill in Trials.' 
 We are reliably informed that over 40,000 copies of these works have 
 "been sold, which affords the most convincing proof of their sterling 
 "worth and great popularity." — TAe Guide. 
 
 ISemt Postpaid on JSeceipt of Price. 
 
 The Collector Publishihg Co., 
 
 PUBLISHERS and ■-% < «<i »^ . . 
 
 BOOKSELLERS DetrOlty /^ICp, 
 
Popular Series 
 
 OP, 
 
 Celebrated A 
 
 mencan 
 
 Trials 
 
 Uh 
 
 e 
 
 Oas©, 
 
 THE Collector Publishing Co. will bring 
 out within the next few months a series 
 of great trials, including generally the 
 story of the case, the examination of the wit- 
 nesses and the speeches of counsel. The first 
 of this series is now ready. It is the great 
 trial of Prof. Webster, of Harvard, for the 
 murder of Dr. Parkman. There is no mora 
 famous case in all the history of American 
 criminal law. It is not only a most interest- 
 ing case to read, however, although the story 
 is enthralling, the examination of the wit- 
 nesses noteworthy, while the speeches of the 
 great lawyers in the case hold the reader s 
 interest to the end. It is a great authority 
 in the criminal law and procedure, and prob- 
 ably no case ever tried is so frequently cited 
 in the books. The report that we now bring 
 out was prepared by George Bemis, Esq , one 
 of the counsel for the Commonwealth, and 
 is, therefore, authoritative and well pre- 
 pared. One for whom celebrated trials and 
 the speeches of great men of the bar have 
 any interest should not fail to add this book 
 to his library. 
 
 POPULAR EDITION, a VOLS., «Lw ^rt 
 BOUND IN HEAVY HANILLA, oP^'O"* 
 
 ^be Collector H^ublisbing Co*t 
 
 Publishers and Booksellers. 
 
 DETROIT, men* 
 
tPaluable 
 
 Hawley's Law of Arrest.— Price, 75c. 
 
 This is a little book of 70 pages by John G. Hawley, the distinguished legal 
 writer, stating the principles of the law of arrest, including the rights and duties 
 of police officers in and before making arrests, the rights and duties of private 
 citizens in making arrests, the rights of individuals in the matter of being arrested, 
 the liabilities of officers and citizens for false imprisonment, warrants— their form 
 and when necessary and when not necessary to tne legality of the arrest, rights of 
 prisoners, etc. Thousands of copies have been sold to the Police Departments 
 throughout the country, to lawyers and law students and to the general public. 
 
 Hawley's Law for Tenants - Price, 7SC. A book of 78 pages bound in leather, 
 explaining clearly the mutual rights and obligations of landlord and tenant in such 
 plain, simple language that every person interested may understand the law on 
 the subject and guard himself againsL entering into an improvident contract. It 
 is published with a view of furnishing a safe guide to the layman as well as a good 
 reference book to the lawyer and the law student. 
 
 Hawley's Law for Land Buyers— Price, 75c. This little book contains 56 
 pages, and treats fully of the law of Real Property as met with|in every day trans- 
 actions in real estate, it having to do with the contract, the title, the deed, the 
 mortgage, fixtures, right of possession, warranties, homestead, record, etc. Every 
 dealer in the land should be possessed of this little treatise. Bound in leather. 
 
 Shall I Study Law?— Price, 50c. By one who has tried. Paper bound, 69 
 pages. The book is written for young men who are thinking of taking up the law 
 as a special study, and giving reasons for and against it, together with much prac- 
 tical instruction, enabling young men to know what to do in answer to this question. 
 
 Our National Charters— Price, soc. This book contains the Declaration of 
 Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution and Amendments, 
 Washington's Farewell Address, the Dictatorship Conferred on Washington, the 
 Ordinance of 1787, the Monroe Doctrine, and the Emancipation Proclamation. 
 
 Requirements for Admission to tiie Bar— Price, soc. Giving the rules and 
 regulations of all the States and Territories. 
 
 How to Prepare for a Civil Service Examination— Price, soc. Paper, 100 
 pages. 
 
 How to Build Up a Successful Commercial Law Practice— Price, 5«c. Paper, 
 very practical. By A. X. Dunner. 
 
 The Vest Pocltet Parliamentary Pointer— Price, 2sc. This little book answers 
 at a glance the intricate questions of Parliamentary Law, without diagrams or 
 reference marks to confuse or mislead. It is so small it can be concealed in the 
 hand, and referred to during a meeting without attracting attention. It contains 
 about 23 pages, and measures about 2^x4 inches. It uses a system of abbrevia- 
 tions, condensing parliamentary rules into the smallest space. 
 
 The Business Builder— Price, $1.00. Containing a list of the prominent for- 
 warders or distributors of commercial law business and collections in the principal 
 cities. Exactly what the Attorney, who wants to build up a big business in this 
 line, wants. No other book like it. The result of ten years' study of the field of 
 agencies and commercial law firms in the large business centers. With this book 
 and a few postage stamps you can materially increase your clientage. 
 
 The 60LLC6TOR Pliblishinq 60., 
 
 PUBLISHERS AND BOOKSELLERS. ^ DETROIT, MICH. 
 
The Comic 
 
 By Crilbert A'Beckett. 
 
 THIS is a book that was written more for the entertainment 
 than the instruction of lawyers and law students, and the 
 anchor, being a true humorist, has made it very interesting. 
 It is amazing to note how many opportunities for fun he has found 
 in the Commentaries. It may be as dry as " the dry bones of the 
 law " to one who has never studied law, but to the lawyer and law 
 student it is one of the most interesting and amusing books ever 
 written. To the lawyer or law student, however, it will be found 
 to be more than merely amusing It is also a practical aid or sup- 
 plement to the study of Blackstone. It is remarkable how thor- 
 oughly a point of law may be impressed on one's mind by a joke, 
 and A'Beckett's Comic Blackstone is full of instances of this kind. 
 It contains many hearty laughs and much good law, and no lawyer 
 or law student who has a touch of humor in him can fail to appre- 
 ciate it highly 
 Price, handsomely bound in cloth, |1.25. 
 
 THE COLLECTOR 
 PUBLISHING CO., 
 
 Booksellers and 
 Publishers, 
 
 DETROIT, niCH. 
 
(C hoosing a 
 
 ipecialty. 
 
 THIS is the title of a book- 
 let containing eleven ar- 
 ticles, treating of eleven dif- 
 ferent specialties in the prac- 
 tice of lavp-, and the various 
 considerations that a man 
 should weigh in determining 
 upon any particular line of 
 practice aa his specialty, such 
 as education and special quali- 
 fications required, peculiarities 
 of the practice, if any, nature 
 of the work, the class of clients 
 to be dealt with, compensation 
 to be expected, etc. These 
 articles were written by emi- 
 nent men in their particular 
 line of practice, and first ap- 
 peared in The Law Student's 
 Helper, where they attracted 
 much attention throughout the 
 country, and were widely 
 quoted. The articles and their 
 authors are as follows : 
 
 Criminal Law, by John G. Hawley, 
 one of the authors of Hawley & 
 McGregor on Criminal Law, De- 
 troit, Mich. 
 
 Mining: Law, by John B. Clayberg, 
 
 Helena, Montana. 
 
 Patent Law, by Albert H. Walker, 
 author of Walker on Patents, Hart- 
 ford, Ct. 
 
 Medical Jurisprudence, by Marshall D. 
 Ewell, M. D., LL. D., Dean Kent Col- 
 lege of Law, Chicago. 
 
 Real Estate Law, by Darius H. Pin- 
 
 frey, author of Pingrey on Real 
 roperty, Bloomington, 111. 
 
 Commercial Law, by Hon. Daniel K. 
 Tenny, Madison,wis., late of Tenny, 
 McConnell & CofEeen, Chicago. 
 
 Law Teaching, by Prof. Edwin H. 
 Woodruff, of the Cornell Law 
 School, Ithaca, N. Y. 
 
 Insurance Law, by D. Ostrander, of 
 Chicago. 
 
 Admiralty Law, by Martin Clark, of 
 Clinton & Clark, Buffalo, N. Y. 
 
 Corporation Law, by Charles F. Math- 
 ewson, of Strung, Harmon & 
 Mathewson, of New York. 
 
 General Practice, by John B. Green, 
 of Cole & Green, of New York. 
 
 This list of papers from writers of 
 such standing and ability, cannot fail to 
 contain much of interest to every law- 
 yer and law student. 
 
 Price, 50c. delivered. 
 
 THE COLLECTOR PUBLISHING CO., 
 
 !■■ DETROIT, rUCH. 
 
odd IBmmt Speeches. 
 
 Speakers* 
 
 Clotb. 
 j&eliverefl, $U50* 
 
 Here we offer you the finest collection of after-dinner 
 speeches ever gathered together in one book, for they 
 are not a collection of the utterances of one man, but 
 are the best efforts of many men famous at the banquet 
 board, such as Thomas A. Hendricks, Senator Vilas, 
 James G. Jenkins, George W. Wakefield, Thomas F. 
 Bayard, Gen. J. C. Black, Rev. Wm. E. Park. Dr. Hirsch, 
 John B. Green, Henry Wollman, Joseph C. Hendrix, 
 Judge Grosscup, Senator Foraker, Chauncey M. Depew, 
 and many others "of infinite .jest, of most excellent 
 fancy and flashes of merriment that were wont to set 
 the tables on a roar. " The speeches here given cover an 
 infinite variety of subjects and occasions— bar banquets, 
 political banquets, occasional celebrations, and all kinds 
 and conditions of society gatherings. The after-dinner 
 speaker, or one who would be such, wants this book. 
 
 Gbe Collector ipublisblttd Co^t 
 
 ^E BUY, SELL AND EXCHANGE 
 
 LAW BOOKS 
 
 IF YOU EVER WANT A BOOK, 
 OR A LffiRARY, OR WANT TO 
 
 SELL ONE, WRITE vs, :x :x :x 
 
 NEW CATALOGUE OF 
 
 ALL LAW BOOKS FOR 
 
 OUR ADDRESS. TWO 2-CENT STAMPS, 
 
 The Collector Publishing Co.i 
 
 DETROIT, MICR 
 
....A New Students* Book on,... 
 
 /^ 
 
 Criminal Law 
 
 JOHN G. HAWLEY, 
 
 Professor of Criminal Law In the Detroit College of Law, first 
 Editor of the American Criminal Reports, and author of numer« 
 ous standard works on separate. branches of the Criminal Law; 
 
 MALCOLM McGregor, 
 
 Also of the Faculty of the Detroit Collegelof Law. 
 
 This book is the outgrowth of years of study, practice and teach- 
 ing of the criminal law, and is by men who are acknowledged masters 
 of their subject. 
 
 It was written for the use of students rather than practitioners, 
 and so deals with principles instead of mere precedents. Mr. Hawley 
 and Mr. McGregor are both deep students of this subject and present it 
 in a clear, systematic and scientific manner, bringing out reasons and 
 principles in bold relief. They have not, however, disdained the use 
 of precedents for illustrative purposes, but principles are always upper- 
 most, as they should be in all books for students, if not for practitioners. 
 
 Adopted in eight law schools, and the first edition exhausted 
 within less than a year, which is powerful evidence of its superiority 
 and popularity. 
 
 THE B^ST BOOK ON THE SUBJECT FOR STUDENTS. 
 
 nbOUt Joti r BgCSa Bound in Liaw 4heep, 3.0O 
 
 The Collector Publishing Co., 
 
 Booksellers and Publishers, DETROIT, MICH. 
 
I^on't Vou tibink 
 
 That a magazine that contains all the news of the commercial law world, 
 items of interest from all sections, helpful articles and suggestions, 
 and new ideas as to how to get business and how to handle it after you 
 get it, is worth $1.00 per year to you? 
 
 Vou IBeed 
 
 Some progressive paper dealing with the new questions and many 
 sides of your business, giving you the best ideas of the best men in the 
 business, and telling you what others are doing in the march to success. 
 You can't keep up with the times and with your competitors without it. 
 
 Aims to fill your needs in this respect exactly. It gives you all the 
 news. It gives you new ideas and helpful suggestions. As the ofiflcial 
 organ of the Michigan Press Association Siiys, ''The Collector and 
 Commercial Lawyer is the Bible of the collection and commercial law 
 business." Its editor is "William C. Sprague, its assistant editor, QriflBth 
 Ogden Ellis. Every man needs his class paper. The Collector and 
 Commercial Lawyer has no rival in its class. 
 
 Subscribe at Once. THE COLLECTOR PUBLISHING CO., 
 
 Sl.OO Per Year. DETROIT, MICH. 
 
 is^Law S 
 Helper. 
 
 A Monthly Magazine 
 ___—«-—,-». w- w^.^ ^ ^^.^ w .T for Law Students and 
 
 Young Men Generally. 
 
 This magazine interests law students because it gives them practical help 
 and suggestions about their work ; because it gives them every month a variety 
 of interesting reading matter selected with particular regard to their needs and 
 to their tastes ; because it discusses matters from their standpoint, and so has 
 made itself recognized as the especial magazine for and organ of the law students 
 of the country. 
 
 Among its special departments are : " Short Talks on Current Events of 
 Interest to Law Students.'" " Law School Notes," giving all the news from the law 
 schools; " Law Students' Societies," giving the doings of the law students' societfea 
 of the country, with suggestions and helps as to the work of such societies; 
 "Questions Answered and Difficulties Met for Students of the Law ;" " The Self- 
 Examiner,"' giving questions and answers selected from bar examinations. In 
 addition to these special departments it gives every month a great variety of 
 interesting and practical miscellaneous articles. 
 
 That it is popular with its subscribers and worthy of your patronage is 
 evidenced by the fact that it has attained a greater circulation than any other 
 legal magazine in tlie country. Its edit"r-in-chief is Wm. C. Sprague, president 
 of the Sprague Correspondence School of Law, and its assistant editor is Griffith 
 Ogden Ellis, vice-principal of that school. They know what law students want. 
 You will like the magazine. 
 
 Snbscribe at Once. THE COLLECTOR PUBLISHING CO., 
 
 «1.00 PeT Year. DETROIT, MICK 
 
QUIZ!=QUIZ!=^QUIZI 
 
 Do YOU KNOW of any better method of impressing upon your mind what 
 you have read than questions and answers ? We do not, and this method 
 has been endorsed by all thinkers since Socrates. And how much more 
 valuable it is when questions have been selected by a master, so that they cover 
 just the points that you should remember, and bring out all the phases of each 
 subject, many of which you would never notice in merely studying the text-book, 
 and show its many sides and in different lights in a way that is most beneficial to 
 the student, but which is foreign to the nature of text-books. But a properly 
 conducted Quiz should not be a mere aid to the memory. It should not be con- 
 fined to showing the student how much or how little he knows. It should be 
 instructive in the highest sense. Naturally, the answering of the questions com- 
 pels the student to both remember and think, but the questions should also be so 
 framed as to teach him to think, as by suggesting new phases of the subject and 
 new lines of thought, and by calling for reasons and principles as well as mere 
 rules. The questioner should never be satisfied with a mere parrot-like repetition 
 of the text-book, and the questions should be so framed that that will not be 
 sufficient. 
 
 With these principles in mind we have had prepared a series of quiz books 
 which we call the Quizzer Series. That they are helpful to the students, we have 
 the highest evidence, viz. : large sales and students who have bought one book, 
 coming back for subsequent numbers. Each book consists of two parts. Part I 
 containing the questions and being interleaved with blank pages on which the stu- 
 dent may write his answers, and Part II containing the correct answers and 
 explanations. 
 
 Here is the list. Some new ones are just out. You can't do the best work 
 without them. 
 
 Have you them all ? Fill out your set QUICK. 
 
 Blackstone Quizzer A (on Book 1 of Blackstone), 
 " B " 2 " 
 
 " C " 3 
 " D " 4 " 
 
 Kent Quizzer E (on book 1 of Kent's Commentaries), 
 
 " 
 
 fcv 
 
 F 
 
 2 
 
 " 
 
 " 
 
 G 
 
 3 " 
 
 " 
 
 " 
 
 H 
 
 4 
 
 Quizzer No. 
 
 1. 
 
 Domestic Relations, 
 
 
 No. 
 
 2. 
 
 Criminal Law, 
 
 
 No. 
 
 3. 
 
 Torts, 
 
 
 No. 
 
 4. 
 
 Real Property, 
 
 
 No. 
 
 5. 
 
 Constitutional Law, 
 
 
 No. 
 
 6. 
 
 Contracts, 
 
 
 No. 
 
 8. 
 
 Common Law Reading, 
 
 
 No. 
 
 9. 
 
 Corporations, - 
 
 
 No. 
 
 10. 
 
 Bills, Notes and Checks, 
 
 
 No. 
 
 11. 
 
 Equity, - - - - 
 
 
 No. 
 
 13. 
 
 Agency, 
 
 
 No. 
 
 13. 
 
 Partnership, - 
 
 
 No. 
 
 14. 
 
 Sales of Personal Property, 
 
 
 No. 
 
 15. 
 
 Evidence, 
 
 60 cts. 
 60 cts. 
 50 cts. 
 60 cts. 
 60 cts. 
 60 cts. 
 60 cts. 
 50 cts. 
 50 cts. 
 50 cts. 
 50 cts. 
 50 cts. 
 50 cts. 
 50 cts. 
 50 cts. 
 50 cts. 
 50 cts. 
 50 cts. 
 50 cts, 
 50 sts. 
 50 cts. 
 50 cts. 
 
 ^P~ OTHERS TO FOLLOW. 
 
 Address, THE COLLECTOR PUB. CO., Detroit, Mich. 
 
Deacldified using the Bookkeeper proce 
 Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
 Treatment Date: Oct. 2009 
 
 PreservationTechnologie 
 
 A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATI 
 
 111 Thomson Park Drive 
 Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
 (724) 779-2111 
 
QQl 1 3 19^