Washington? Where and what was Washington during those long preliminary years while the nation was taking form...? A quiet planter, who in youth as a surveyor had come to know the woods; who in his young manhood had led bodies of provincials with some efficiency in certain unsuccessful military expeditions; who in maturity had sat, for the most part in silence, among his talking colleagues in the House of Burgesses, with scarcely a suggestion to make in all the sharp debate, while the new nation was shaping. There is another character in our history to whom was once given the title, "Father of America,"-a man to a large extent forgotten, his reputation overlaid by that of those who followed him, -no other than this man of the townmeeting, Samuel Adams. As far as the GENESIS of America is concerned, Samuel Adams can more properly be called the "Father of America" than Washington.

B. In each of the following paragraphs the topic statement is found in two or more sentences or in parts of two or more sentences. Restate it briefly in a single sentence. Remember that the most significant part of the sentence will be the predicate, or some adjective or adverb.

1. There is a general impression in England, that the people of the United States are inimical to the parent country. It is one of the errors which have been diligently propagated by designing writers. There is, doubtless, considerable political hostility, and a general soreness at the illiberality of the English press; but, generally speaking, the prepossessions of the people are strongly in favor of England. Indeed, at one time, they amounted, in many parts of the Union, to an absurd degree of bigotry. The bare name of Englishman was a passport to the confidence and hospitality of every family, and too often gave a tran

sient currency to the worthless and the ungrateful. Throughout the country there was something of enthusiasm connected with the idea of England. We looked to it with a hallowed feeling of tenderness and veneration, as the land of our forefathers the august repository of the monuments and antiquities of our race -the birthplace and mausoleum of the sages and heroes of our paternal history. After our own country, there was none in whose glory we more delighted none whose good opinion we were more anxious to possess-none towards which our hearts yearned with such throbbings of warm consanguinity. Even during the late war, whenever there was the least opportunity for kind feelings to spring forth, it was the delight of the generous spirits of our country to show that, in the midst of hostilities, they still kept alive the sparks of future friendship. IRVING: Sketch-Book.

2. To the student of political history, and to the English student above all others, the conversion of the Roman Republic into a military empire commands a peculiar interest. Notwithstanding many differences, the English and the Romans essentially resemble one another. The early Romans possessed the faculty of self-government beyond any people of whom we have historical knowledge, with the one exception of ourselves. In virtue of their temporal freedom, they became the most powerful nation in the known world; and their liberties perished only when Rome became the mistress of the conquered races to whom she was unable or unwilling to extend her privileges. If England was similarly supreme, if all rival powers were eclipsed by her or laid under her feet, the Imperial tendencies, which are as strongly marked in us as our love of liberty, might lead us over the same course to the same end.

3. You would think it strange if I called Burns the most gifted British soul we had in all that century of his and yet I believe the day is coming when there will be little. danger in saying so. His writings, all that he did under such obstructions, are only a poor fragment of him. Professor Stewart remarked very justly, what, indeed, is true of all Poets good for much, that his poetry was not any particular faculty, but the general result of a naturally vigorous original mind expressing itself in that way. Burns's gifts, expressed in conversation, are the theme of all that ever heard him. All kinds of gifts: from the gracefulest utterances of courtesy, to the highest fire of passionate speech; loud floods of mirth, soft wailings of affection, laconic emphasis, clear, piercing insight; all was in him. Witty duchesses celebrate him as a man whose speech "led them off their feet." This is beautiful; but still more beautiful that which Mr. Lockhart has recorded, which I have more than once alluded to. How the waiters and ostlers at inns would get out of bed, and come crowding to hear this man speak! Waiters and ostlers; - they too were men, and here was a man! I have heard much about his speech; but one of the best things I ever heard of it was, last year, from a venerable gentleman long familiar with him. That it was speech distinguished by always having something in it. "He spoke rather little than much," this old man told me; "sat rather silent in those early days, as in the company of persons above him; and always when he did speak, it was to throw new light on the matter." I know not why any one should ever speak otherwise! But if we look at his general force of soul, his healthy robustness every way, the rugged downrightness, penetration, generous valor and manfulness that was in him, where shall we readily find a better-gifted man?

C. These paragraphs as originally written contained topic statements. Supply the omission at the place indicated by the dots, and remember that the predicate of the topic statement is of prime importance.

1. SCHOOL LIFE AWAY FROM HOME.

You are about, sir, to send your son to a public school: Eton or Westminster; Winchester or Harrow; Rugby or the Charter House, no matter which. He may come from either an accomplished scholar to the utmost extent that school education can make him so; he may be the better both for its discipline and its want of discipline; it may serve him excellently well as a preparatory school for the world into which he is about to enter. But also he may come away an empty coxcomb or a hardened brute spendthrifta profligatea blackguard or a sot. . . .

2. PRIDE OF THE ENGLISH.

a

They feel superior to the Americans of the United States by antiquity and by priority of civilization, and they believe themselves to be their superiors in culture and in manners. Besides these differences, which may be more or less imaginary, it is obvious that aristocratic Englishmen must look down upon American democracy, since they look down, impartially, upon all democracies. The English living in England have a superiority of position over their own colonies, and are surprised to learn from Mr. Froude that a high degree of civilization is to be found at the Antipodes. There are two opposite ways of thinking about the colonies that give equal aliment to the pride of an EnglishHe may have something like Mrs. Jameson's first impression of Canadian society, as "a small community of fourth-rate, half-educated, or uneducated people, where local politics of the meanest kind engross the men, and petty

man.

gossip and household cares the women," and in that case the superiority of England must be incontestable; or he may adopt the views of Mr. Froude, and then reflect what a great thing it is for England to be the first among the highly civilized English-speaking communities. He is, besides, under no necessity to cross the ocean for subjects of comparison. He feels himself easily superior to the Scotch and Irish, and until recent agitations he had almost forgotten the very existence of the Welsh. All Scotch people know that the English, though they visit Scotland to admire the lochs and enjoy Highland sports, are as ignorant about what is essentially national in that country as if it were a foreign land. Ireland is at least equally

foreign to them, or was so before the burning question of Home Rule directed attention to Irish affairs. This ignorance is not attributable to dulness. It has but one cause,

...

3. THE RELATIONS OF BIRDS.

A few years ago, I was much interested in the house-building of a pair of summer yellowbirds. They had chosen a very pretty site near the top of a white lilac, within easy eye-shot of a chamber window. A very pleasant thing it was to see their little home growing with mutual help, to watch their industrious skill interrupted only by little flirts and snatches of endearment, frugally cut short by the common sense of the tiny housewife. They had brought their work nearly to an end, and had already begun to line it with fern-down, the gathering of which demanded more distant journeys and longer absences. But, alas! the syringa, immemorial manor of the catbirds, was not more than twenty feet away, and these "giddy neighbors" had, as it appeared, been all along jealously watchful, though silent, witnesses of what they deemed an intrusion of squatters.