very reason do I believe it to be heroism of a higher type than that of the soldier.

But there is a second circumstance peculiar to the life of the soldier, which makes martial heroism to be of an easier and therefore inferior type. I refer to the fact that the soldier performs his deeds of valor not only under the stimulus of "pomp and circumstance," but also under the sweet influences of companionship. The soldier is always one of a company or regiment. Except on occasional scout or sentry duty, he is always moving with the collective motion of a great host of his fellowmen. He is never working, fighting, suffering alone, and is therefore never left to the heart-breaking task of bearing his burden in solitude. On the contrary, as he walks, he keeps step with thousands of marching feet; as he advances into battle, he rubs shoulders with his "mates"; as he falls headlong in the trenches, he is picked up and ministered to by the hands of those he loves. And out of this solace of companionship, out of this inspiration of collective life, there comes creeping into his heart a sense of uplift, a contagion of spirit, which makes heroism inevitable. I have never seen this aspect of military experience more wonderfully expressed than by Prof. Perry, of Harvard, in an article in the New Republic, in which he describes his impressions as a Plattsburgh "rookie." "Soldierly experiences," he says, "are common experiences, and are hallowed by that fact. You are asked to do no more than hundreds of others * * * do with you. If you rinse your greasy mess-kit in a tub of greasier water, you are one of many gathered like thirsty birds about a road-side puddle. If you fill your lungs and the pores of your sweaty skin with dust, fellows in adversity are all about you, looking grimier than you feel; and your very complaints uttered in chorus partake of the quality of defiant song. To walk is one thing, to march albeit with sore feet and aching back is another and more triumphant. It is 'Hail! Hail! the gang's all here'—it matters not what the words signify, provided they have a rhythmic swing, and impart a choral sense of collective unity. * * * Every late afternoon," he continues, "the flag is lowered, and the band plays 'The Star Spangled Banner.' Men in ranks are ordered to attention. Men and officers out of ranks stand at attention where they are, facing a flag, and saluting as the music ceases. Thus to stand at attention toward sundown, listening to solemn music sounding faintly in the distance, to see and to feel that every fellow-soldier is standing also rigid and intent, to experience this reverent and collective silence * * * is at once to understand and to dedicate that day's work."

Now all this is very beautiful. But its very beauty is what makes the heroism of the soldier as easy as the heroism of others is oftentimes difficult. Compare, for example, the courage of even the most gallant soldier with the courage of the pioneer, who goes alone into vast and unfamiliar solitudes, and there amid killing labors and strange perils, hews out a path to life, with never the face of a comrade or the voice of a woman to give him cheer. I think that I never knew the meaning of loneliness, and never understood therefore the sublime heroism of the pioneer until I journeyed through the prairies of Kansas, the deserts of Arizona and the pasture lands of Idaho and Montana. Those of you who have traveled through the great west will recognize the sensation that came over me as, hour after hour, I gazed upon those uninhabited wastes and saw only at rarest intervals the traces of human beings. I remember looking out upon the prairies late one afternoon and watching the slow fading of the day. For three hours, from four until seven o'clock, I saw on the passing landscape one horseman, as lonely as a solitary sail at sea, one prairie wagon with three men gathered about the evening camp fire, and two houses on the far horizon. From seven to eight o'clock came on the darkness, and soon we were riding through impenetrable night; and twice, perhaps three times, at intervals of an hour or more, I saw a single light twinkling in the distance, marking where some man or perhaps some family, was living in the solitudes. And I dreamed that night of the men, and the women, too, who first came out into these vast spaces, leaving home, friends, companionship behind to make a trail, build a home, prepare the way for the coming of civilization. The very road over which my train was moving was the old trail of the Santa Fe, which had been trod by the feet of thousands of lonely and intrepid souls, who dared the wilderness and the desert as the forerunners of the nation's life. These men, and the women also who were with them, to rear their homes and bear their children, were heroes of a type sublime—heroes who never knew the joy of comradeship, the consolation of co-operation, but lived and toiled and died alone, with only a dream of the future in their hearts to give them courage. It was fitting, and yet how sadly belated recognition which was given them in the noble monuments at the World's Fair in Chicago, which bore these inscriptions from the pen of President Eliot:

Such is the heroism of solitude! But not yet have we reached its purest and noblest form. These men and women were lonely, it is true; but they were sustained, after all, by a great hope of the future, by dreams of prosperity and happiness to come as the fruit of toil, by ambitions for the children who would survive to better and fuller days. Braver even than these are the men who have faced loneliness without hope—who have looked not merely on solitude, but on solitude ending in defeat and death—and still have lived as those who had no fear. The classic example of this great heroism has been given to the world by our own age, in the story of Captain Scott. Whenever my own faint heart begins to fail under the strain of burdens absurdly light, I take up a copy of Captain Scott's Journals, as I would take up a copy of holy scripture, and I read as long as my tear-filled eyes can see the page the items that he jotted down in his diary on those last terrible days before he died. Here he is in the midst of the vast solitudes of the arctic wastes, struggling along with his two half-dead companions, his feet frozen, food gone, fuel gone, and a hurricane beating him helpless to the ground. He knows he cannot get through to his goal, he knows there is no living soul within hundreds of miles to bring him succor. On March 19th he speaks of their "forlorn hope"; on the 22nd he confesses that "he must be near the end"; on the 29th he speaks of death and says flatly, "I do not think we can hope for any better things now. * * * We are getting weaker, and the end cannot be far." But never once, for all his anguish and solitude, does he give way. "We shall stick it out to the end," is his word. He can even joke at one time in a grim and terrible sort of way. "No human being could face (this) storm," he writes on March 18th, "and we are nearly worn out. My right foot is gone—two days ago I was the proud possessor of the