The ideals of the Declaration of Independence practically apply, and were intended only thus to apply, to a people fitted for self-government. It is an absurdity to apply them in practice to a people unfitted by general intelligence or experience to carry on a free and stable government by which alone these rights can be secured to the individual.

Lafayette, years after he tendered his life with his sword to the cause of American independence, advised the crowning of Louis Philippe King of France instead of the establishment of a republic, for the reason, as he said, that the French people were not at that time as well fitted for self-government as the Americans were at the time of their Revolution, but it would be a gross calumny upon a great nation to say that the French people were not at that time as well fitted for self-government as are the Tagalos now, or any other portion of the inhabitants of the Philippine Islands.

The American colonies had a practical experience in self-government under their respective charters from the Crown of Great Britain in township, county, and State administration for more than a hundred years, and yet not one of them adopted in practice then, nor have they since the self-evident truth which they put in the Declaration of Independence, that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. Even Massachusetts, home of Edward Atkinson and other like kindred spirits, has no provision in her organic law for ascertaining the consent of even a majority of her adult population to the constitution under which they live, or their consent to

the enactment of the laws which they must obey. The legal voters anywhere are not one-half of the adult population whose consent in theory is requisite for just government.

The defendants of the Tagalo insurgents, calling themselves anti-imperialists, insist that these ideals of our fathers, which have never yet been incorporated practically into any government, shall be made a part of the government to be established for the conglomerate of Malay and Mongolian population in the Philippine Islands, a population which have never had any experience in any kind of self-government and whose unfitness for such government at the present time is everywhere admitted.

But the population of these islands, under the controlling influence of the United States, with its free institutions, and their own better conditions after peace and order shall have been established, will no doubt in a short time become fitted for self-govern

When that time shall come and the United States of America shall establish for these islands, with their eight or ten millions of people a free and independent government, to be administered by themselves, it will be the gift of the great Republic to civilization of a colossal statue of liberty enlightening the world, throwing its refulgent rays from the mountain peaks overlooking the Bay of Manila, across the Chinese Sea, and over the empire of oldest time, where dwells one fourth of the present population of the globe.

Such is the mission; the manifest destiny, of this nation, now, in behalf of liberty and humanity, the

same as it was three score years ago, before the pioneer settler scaled the snow-crowned summits of the Sierras or the flag of our fathers fluttered along the shores of the Pacific.

Henceforth, over whatever portion of the earth's surface the flag of the great Republic shall float, it will be the emblem of liberty, justice, and humanity, beckoning the race on to a higher and better civilization.

Westward the course of empire takes its way;
Time's noblest offspring is the last.

1

Story, Joseph, an eminent American jurist, born at Marblehead, Mass., September 18, 1779; died in Cambridge, Mass., September 10, 1845. Adopting the profession of law, he quickly rose to prominence, and after serving as a member of the State Legislature of Massachusetts, and in the National House of Representatives, he was appointed an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court in 1811, retaining the office until his death. From 1829 he was also Dane professor of law at Harvard College. He made many addresses, professional and otherwise, but was a polished and dignifield rather than an especially eloquent speaker, and will be longest remembered by his various Commentaries, which form a monument of legal learning. Story's life was written by his son, the noted sculptor, W. W. Story.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AGE.

PRONOUNCED AT CAMBRIDGE, BEFORE THE PHI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY,

AUGUST 31, 1826.

ONE of the most striking characteristics of our age, and that, indeed, which has worked deepest in all the changes of its fortunes and pursuits, is the general diffusion of knowledge. This is emphatically the age of reading. In other times this was the privilege of the few; in ours it is the possession of the many. Learning once constituted the accomplishment of those in the higher orders of society, who had no relish for active employment, and of those whose monastic lives and religious professions sought to escape from the weariness of their common duties. Its progress may

be said to have been gradually downward from the higher to the middle classes of society. It scarcely reached at all, in its joys or its sorrows, in its instructions or its fantasies, the home of the peasant and artisan. It now radiates in all directions, and exerts its central force more in the middle than in any other class of society. The means of education were formerly within the reach of few. It required wealth to accumulate knowledge. The possession of a library was no ordinary achievement. The learned leisure of a fellowship in some university seemed almost indispensable for any successful studies; and the patronage of princes and courtiers was the narrow avenue to public favor. I speak of a period at little more than the distance of two centuries; not of particular instances, but of the general cast and complexion of life.

The principal cause of this change is to be found in the freedom of the press, or rather in this co-operating with the cheapness of the press. It has been aided also by the system of free schools, wherever it has been established; by that liberal commerce which connects by golden chains the interests of mankind; by that spirit of inquiry which Protestantism awakened throughout Christian Europe; and above all by those necessities which have compelled even absolute monarchs to appeal to the patriotism and common sentiments of their subjects. Little more than a century has elapsed since the press in England was under the control of a licenser; and within our own days only has it ceased to be a contempt, punishable by imprisonment, to print the debates of Parliament. We all