Average Americans

d poems that they read us they always bore this in mind. Pilgrim's Progress and The Battle Hymn of the Republic we knew when we were very young. When father was dressing for dinner he used to teach us poetry. I can remember memorizing all the most stirring parts of Longfellow's Saga of King Olaf, Sheridan's Ride, and the Sinking of the Cumberland. The gallant incidents in history were told us in such a way that we never forgot them. In Washington, when father was civil service commissioner, I often walked to the office with him. On the way down he would talk history to me--not the dry history of dates and charters, but the history where you yourself in your imagination could assume the role of the principal actors, as every well-constructed boy wishes to do when interested. During every battle we would stop and father would draw out the full plan in the dust in the gutter with the tip of his umbrella.

When very little we saw a great many men serving in both