time, Washington addressed a similar letter to the inhabitants of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, urging the farmers to provide cattle for the use of the army. Besides assuring them of a generous price, he impressed upon them the fact that in supplying food they would be rendering great service to the cause of their country.

QUESTIONS AND TOPICS

1. Read your history text to find out about the winter of 1777-1778 at Valley Forge.

2. Compare the methods of providing food for the army in Washington's time with those of our own time. Compare the difficulties of feeding Washington's army with those of feeding our army in France during the World War.

3. How did Washington hope to avoid a terrible crisis? What debt of gratitude do we owe to the soldiers who endured even starvation to win our "inheritance of freedom"? Washington carried not only the burden of the fighting, but also that of the provisioning of the army; what is our great debt to him for this service?

4. What did you read on page 251 about the way by which we can show that we are worthy of such sacrifices as George Washington and his soldiers made? How did our soldiers in the World War show that they were worthy of these sacrifices?

Francis Marion (1732-1795), a general of the Revolutionary period, was the leader of a band of men who carried on guerrilla warfare. Their force was too small to meet the British army in open battle; so they sallied out of woods and swamps and made unexpected attacks, fighting from behind trees and shrubbery. When the British tried to attack them, Marion's men retreated to their hiding-places in the deep thickets and morasses. Though clad in rags and almost starving, they kept up this sort of fighting with the zeal and courage of true patriots. By thus harassing the victorious troops in the Carolinas in 1780 and 1781, they helped to drive Cornwallis north into Virginia, where he surrendered at Yorktown. By their woodland sports in the greenwood they remind us of Robin Hood and his merry men.

QUESTIONS AND TOPICS

1. Who is speaking in this poem? What does the word "band" tell you about these men? How do seamen know their way when on the ocean? How do woodsmen know their way in the forest? Find the lines that picture a southern forest.

2. What does the second stanza tell you of Marion's method of attack? When did the hours of release come? Why did the English soldiery "deem a mighty host behind"? What do you learn from the third stanza of the way the men spent their leisure time?

3. Why is the moon called friendly? Which lines show that this band of men was swift in action? For whom were these men fighting? Explain how they helped to win freedom.

Class Reading. Bring to class and read: "The Swamp Fox," Simms; "Another of Marion's Men," Dickson (in Pioneers and Patriots in American History).

Theme Topics. (Two-minute talks.) 1. What I can do as a young American citizen to show that I am worthy of the sacrifices made by the patriots of the American Revolution. 2. How I can help to make our free government more and more a model for other nations to follow. 3. How my school is a part of the American government. 4. Some things I can do to help preserve our nation's resources for those who come after me.

TIMES THAT TRY MEN'S SOULS

THOMAS PAINE

These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder 10 the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; 'tis dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; it would be strange, indeed, if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a 20 right, not only to tax, but to "bind us in all cases whatsoever," and if being bound in that manner is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious, for so unlimited a power can belong only to God.

I have as little superstition in me as any man living, but my secret opinion 30 has been, and still is, that God Al

mighty will not give up a people to military destruction, or leave them unsupportedly to perish, who have so earnestly and so repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities of war, by every decent method which wisdom could invent.

I once felt all that kind of anger, which a man ought to feel, against the 40 mean principles that are held by the Tories: a noted one, who kept a tavern at Amboy, was standing at his door,

with as pretty a child in his hand, about eight or nine years old, as I ever saw, and after speaking his mind as freely as he thought was prudent, finished with this unfatherly expression, "Well! give me peace in my day." Not a man lives on the continent but fully believes that a separation must 50 some time or other finally take place, and a generous parent should have said, "If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace"; and this single reflection, well applied, is sufficient to awaken every man to duty. Not a place upon earth might be so happy as America. Her situation is remote from all the wrangling world, and she has nothing 60 to do but to trade with them. A man can distinguish in himself between temper and principle, and I am as confident as I am that God governs the world that America will never be happy till she gets clear of foreign dominion. Wars, without ceasing, will break out till that period arrives, and the continent must in the end be conqueror; for though the flame of 70 liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire.

The heart that feels not now, is dead; the blood of his children will curse his cowardice, who shrinks back at a time when a little might have saved the whole and made them happy. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by so reflection. "Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death. My own line of reasoning is to myself as straight and clear as a ray of light. Not all the treasures

of the world, so far as I believe, could have induced me to support an offensive war, for I think it murder; but if a thief breaks into my house, burns. and destroys my property, and kills or threatens to kill me, or those that are in it, and to "bind me in all cases whatsoever" to his absolute will, am I to suffer it? What signifies it to me 10 whether he who does it is a king or a common man; my countryman or not my countryman; whether it be done by an individual villain, or an army of them? If we reason to the root of things we shall find no difference; neither can any just cause be assigned why we should punish in the one case and pardon in the other.

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Thomas Paine (1737-1809), an Englishman by birth, was unknown until well after middle life, having failed to make a success of anything he had undertaken to do. He met Benjamin Franklin in London and was induced by him to try his fortunes in the new world. Never did Franklin do his country a better service than when he persuaded Paine to come to America in 1774, just at the time when this country needed great patriots to help her fight her cause during the Revolutionary War.

Thomas Paine became an editor and wrote many documents which exerted a powerful influence for patriotism. His Crisis, from which "Times That Try Men's Souls" is taken, Washington directed to be read before all the soldiers to stimulate their patriotism. Paine's pen was constantly active, and the effect of his writings upon the morale of the country cannot be overestimated.

QUESTIONS AND TOPICS

1. What political and military situation did Paine have in mind in the opening sentence? What use did Washington make of Paine's pamphlet?

2. What do you think of the argument of the tavern-keeper at Amboy as compared with Paine's? If all Americans had been like this Tory at Amboy, would America today be enjoying its "inheritance of freedom"?

3. In the last one hundred years Europe and America have been brought closer together than they were in Paine's day; account for this change. Under what conditions did Paine think war justifiable?

4. Select sentences that would make good mottoes, such as "Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods."

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) was born in the same year that Tennyson and Lincoln were born. He belonged to a distinguished New England family that lived. in a very old house in Cambridge, close to Harvard College.

Holmes prepared for college at Phillips Academy, Andover, and was a graduate of only average performance. It was in his father's library, that room in the corner of the old house, "filled from floor to ceiling, every wall with books," that Holmes learned most. The poet tells us that it was from the old-fashioned garden, with its beds of hyacinths, tulips, larkspur, and gorgeous hollyhocks; its yellow-birds "flitting about, golden in the golden light, over golden flowers, as if they were flakes of curdled sunshine," that he received his greatest inspiration for much of the poetry he was to write throughout his life

time.

He began very young to practice his gift for writing and was rewarded by having many of his verses accepted while he was still in college. Literature as a profession

was not thought, at that time, to be sufficiently remunerative to be chosen as a life career, and Holmes undertook the study of medicine. He spent two years abroad and returned to teach one year at Dartmouth, after which he became a professor of anatomy and physiology at Harvard, a position which he held actively until 1882 and then as Professor Emeritus until his death. During this entire period he continued his writing, which for the first twenty-five years was almost entirely in verse. Not all of Holmes's verse was humorous; "Old Ironsides," "The Last Leaf," and "The Flower of Liberty" are examples of his more serious poems.

Longfellow, Hawthorne, Lowell, and Whittier had become famous, but Holmes seemed to have no desire for fame. He had written some amusing poems, delivered many lectures, and spent much of his time on his profession. When The Atlantic Monthly was about to be started, all the literary folk turned to Holmes and said, "That jolly old fellow could write something good, if he only would."

When James Russell Lowell accepted the editorship of The Atlantic Monthly, he did so only after Holmes promised to become