the democracy. I learned that the monarchy was the strongest, the aristocracy the wisest, and the democracy the most just. I have had some time to think upon this subject since I received my diploma but I still adhere to a part of that. I believe that the democracy is the most just but I do not believe that the aristocracy is the wisest or that the monarchy is the strongest. A government that draws upon the wisdom of all the people is wiser than the government that rests upon the wisdom of a few of the people, and a monarchy, while it may act more quickly upon a given point or subject, is not the strongest. I prefer to believe with the great historian Bancroft that the republic is in truth the strongest of governments because, disregarding the implements of terror, it dares to build its citadel in the hearts of men. The heart after all is the most secure foundation upon which a nation's strength can be built. Pericles, in his great funeral oration, described the greatness of his country and then he said: "It was for these, then, rather than to have that taken from them, to die fighting in its behalf, and that their survivors may well be willing to suffer for our country."

When a government is just and the people love it, they will die that its blessings may be transmitted to their children and their children's children. This idea of government, this democratic idea of government, is the growing idea.

My friends, if anyone has ever doubted that the ideas of government which characterize our country are the growing ideas, let him but examine recent history. Within five years China, the sleeping giant of the Orient, has sent envoys throughout the world to secure information for the formation of a constitution.

Within five years Russia, the synonym for despotism, has been compelled to recognize the right of the people to a voice in their government, and you have seen a douma established there. It is not what we would like or what we would have in this country, but it is a long step in advance; and, my friends, no one can watch the struggles through which those people have passed, without believing that it is only a question of time when they are going to have constitutional government and freedom of speech and freedom of the press and freedom of conscience and universal education; and when this time comes, as come it will, Russia will take her place among the great nations of the world; for people who are willing to die for liberty as her people have died, have in them the material of which great nations are made.

You may go through the nations of the world, and you will find that in every one there are issues upon which depend the further progress of democratic institutions.

Go into France, the democracy represented by our distinguished guest tonight, and you will find that while in their suffrage they have already reached their limit, while their government is already responsive to the will of the people, they are practically working out their problems. They are increasing the intelligence of their people, adding to the number of schools, increasing the attendance at the schools, and what is also important they are seeking to increase the number of home owners and are doing it, believing that when a man owns his home he is a better citizen than if he is merely a tenant and can be thrown out at will by someone else.

In Great Britain, where they have already solved so many problems, and where, in spite of their monarchial form, they recognize so large a power in the people to direct their government, there is a growing sentiment against the exercise by the House of Lords of any power to thwart, finally, the will of the people expressed at the polls.

And so you can take up every nation, and you will find the sentiment in favor of democracy spreading. You will find, everywhere, governments becoming more popular. You will find, everywhere, the people getting a larger control of their own government; and, if it would not take me into partisan politics, I might easily show that in our own country we have no exception to the rule, but that back of all parties in this country there is a democratic spirit that is forcing, step by step, more complete control of the government by the people who live under the government.

My friends, just one other thought in the development of this subject. There was a time when might meant right and when physical strength was the controlling factor in government. With increasing intelligence, the power of the muscle and the influence of the strong arm decreased and the influence of the brain increased. It was a step in advance, a great step in advance; but the brain is not the largest element in man, and following close upon the supremacy of the mind above the arm, has come the supremacy of the heart over the brain.

Carlyle, in his closing chapters on the French Revolution, presents the relation of these three factors. He said that thought is stronger than artillery park, and moulds the world like soft clay and that back of thought is love; that there never was a great mind that did not have back of it a generous heart.

And so, my friends, I believe that we are making progress in the direction of a larger heart control, and that the greatness of Lincoln, like the greatness of his prototype, Jefferson, was due more to his heart than to his head. His heart was large enough to take in all mankind, and he was one of the earlier apostles of the doctrine of human liberty that is spreading throughout the world.

About fourteen years ago a great Frenchman, Dumas, wrote a letter in which he said that we were on the eve of a new era, when mankind was to be seized with a passion of love, and when men were to understand their relations to each other. Two years afterwards Tolstoi, in his secluded home in

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