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almost, at times, of the common necessaries of life, and became, in his country's cause, nearly a beggar as well as an outlaw.

Of the soldier's great virtues-constancy in disaster, devotion to duty, hopefulness in defeat no man ever 5 possessed a larger share. . . . He was therefore a conqueror in the loftiest sense, for he conquered liberty and a national existence for a whole people. The contest was long, and he fell in the struggle, but the victory was to the dead hero, not to the living monarch.

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He went through life bearing the load of a people's sorrows upon his shoulders with a smiling face. Their name was the last word upon his lips, save the simple affirmative, with which the soldier who had been battling for the right all his lifetime, commended his soul in dying 15 "to his great captain, Christ."

The people were grateful and affectionate, for they trusted the character of their "Father William," and not all the clouds which calumny could collect ever dimmed to their eyes the radiance of that lofty mind to which 20 they were accustomed, in their darkest calamities, to look for light. As long as he lived, he was the guiding star of a whole brave nation, and when he died the little children cried in the streets.

Abridged.

William of Orange: founder of the Dutch republic (1533-1584). — Anabaptists: a religious sect. - Inquisition: a court established in the thirteenth century to punish heresies against the Roman Catholic faith. Philip II of Spain was a Catholic.

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A HURON MISSION HOUSE1

FRANCIS PARKMAN

FRANCIS PARKMAN (1823-1893) was an eminent American historian whose work is as accurate as it is interesting. He has written chiefly about French exploration in the New World.

NOTE. Few passages of history are more striking than those which 5 record the efforts of the French to convert the Indians. While the early English colonies were struggling for a foothold upon the Atlantic coast, events affecting their future were already going on in the heart of the continent. The following selection describes the home of some of the French missionaries in the country lying between Lake Simcoe and Lake Huron.

By the ancient Huron custom, when a man or a family wanted a house the whole village joined in building one. In the present case the neighboring town also took part in the work. Before October the task was finished.

The house was constructed after the Huron model. It 15 was thirty-six feet long and about twenty feet wide,

framed with strong sapling poles planted in the earth to form the sides, with the ends bent into an arch for the roof, the whole lashed firmly together, braced with cross poles, and closely covered with overlapping sheets 20 of bark.

Without, the structure was strictly Indian; but within, the priests, with the aid of their tools, made innovations

1 From "The Jesuits of North America." Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by Francis Parkman, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. Copyright, 1895, by Grace P. Coffin and Katherine S. Coolidge.

which were the astonishment of all the country. They divided their dwelling by transverse partitions into three apartments, each with its wooden door, -a wondrous novelty in the eyes of their visitors. The first served as a hall, an anteroom, and a place of storage for corn, 5 beans, and dried fish. The second-the largest of the

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three was at once kitchen, workshop, dining room, drawing room, school room, and bedchamber. The third was the chapel. Here they made their altar, and here were their images, pictures, and sacred vessels.

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Their fire was on the ground, in the middle of the second apartment, the smoke escaping by a hole in the roof. At the sides were placed two wide platforms, after the Huron fashion, four feet from the earthen floor. On these were chests in which they kept their clothing, and 15

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beneath them they slept, reclining on sheets of bark, and covered with skins and the garments they wore by day. Rude stools, a hand mill, an Indian mortar for crushing corn, and a clock, completed the furniture of the room.

There was no lack of visitors, for the house. contained marvels the fame of which was noised abroad to the uttermost confines of the Huron nation. Chief among them was the clock. The guests would sit in expectant silence by the hour, squatted on the ground, waiting to 10 hear it strike. They thought it was alive and asked what it ate.. As the last stroke sounded, one of the Frenchmen would cry "Stop!"-and to the admiration of the company the obedient clock was silent. The mill was another wonder, and they never tired of turning it. 15 Besides these, there was a prism and a magnet; also a magnifying glass, wherein a flea was transformed to a frightful monster, and a multiplying lens which showed them the same object eleven times repeated.

"What does the Captain say?" was the frequent ques20 tion; for by this title of honor they designated the clock.

"When he strikes twelve times he says, 'Hang on the kettle'; and when he strikes four times he says, 'Get up and go home.""

Both interpretations were remembered. At noon vis25 itors were never wanting; but at the stroke of four all arose and departed, leaving the missionaries for a time. in peace.

EDUCATION

JOHN RUSKIN

NOTE. Ruskin uses words as an artist uses colors, choosing, combining, and arranging with unfailing skill and power. Notice the figures of speech, the allusions and references that are bound up in this brief selection.

Education is, indeed, of all differences not divinely 5 appointed, an instant effacer and reconciler. Whatever is undivinely poor, it will make rich; whatever is undivinely maimed, and halt, and blind, it will make whole, and equal, and seeing. The blind and the lame are to it as to David at the siege of the Tower of Kings, "hated of 10 David's soul."

But there are other divinely appointed differences, eternal as the ranks of the everlasting hills, and as the strength of their ceaseless waters. And these education does not do away with; but measures, manifests, and employs.

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In the handful of shingle which you gather from the seabeach, which the indiscriminate sea, with equality of fraternal foam, has only educated to be, every one, round, you will see little difference between the noble and mean stones. But the jeweler's trenchant education of them 20 will tell you another story. Even the meanest will be better for it, but the noblest so much better that you can class the two together no more.

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