well illustrated in this famous story. The Great Eastern was a steamship of 19,000 tons, built in England in 1858. Ships are now built of more than 40,000 tons capacity.

1. When and how did Field get the idea of laying an Atlantic cable? 2. What difficulties did he have to meet? 3. How did most people regard his scheme? 4. Where did he get financial help? 5. What misfortunes did he encounter? 6. How many times did he fail? 7. What interrupted the work for a time? 8. When was it finally completed? 9. Describe the grappling for the lost cable. 10. Of what value has his enterprise been to us?

Phrases: Forlorn hope, an almost hopeless chance; revulsion of feeling, a violent change from one feeling to its opposite, as from despair to joy; bore away, sailed away; magnetic currents, electric currents. For Study with the Glossary: Resuscitate, preliminary, steppes, plateau, incredulity, resolute, despondency, lurch, grapnel, symbols.

For Oral and Written Composition: 1. The value of the telegraph. 2. Some famous invention (as the telephone, the aëroplane, or some other). 3. How science has changed modern life. 4. Imagine the world without the telegraph; or without locomotives, or without some other important invention now in common use.

A TRIBUTE TO LINCOLN

Such was he, our Martyr-Chief,

Whom late the Nation he had led,

With ashes on her head,

Wept with the passion of an angry grief :
Forgive me, if from present things I turn

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To speak what in my heart will beat and burn,

And hang my wreath on his world-honored urn.

Nature, they say, doth dote,

And cannot make a man

Save on some worn-out plan,

Repeating us by rote:

For him her Old-World moulds aside she threw,
And, choosing sweet clay from the breast

Of the unexhausted West,

With stuff untainted shaped a hero new,

Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true.
How beautiful to see

Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed,

Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead;
One whose meek flock the people joyed to be,
Not lured by any cheat of birth,

But by his clear-grained human worth,
And brave old wisdom of sincerity!

They knew that outward grace is dust;
They could not choose but trust

In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill,

And supple-tempered will

That bent like perfect steel to spring again and thrust.

His was no lonely mountain-peak of mind,
Thrusting to thin air o'er our cloudy bars,
A sea-mark now, now lost in vapors blind;
Broad prairie rather, genial, level-lined,
Fruitful and friendly for all human-kind,

Yet also nigh to heaven and loved of loftiest stars.
Nothing of Europe here,

Or, then, of Europe fronting mornward still,

Ere any names of Serf and Peer

Could Nature's equal scheme deface
And thwart her genial will;

Here was a type of the true elder race,

And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face.

I praise him not; it were too late;

And some innative weakness there must be

In him who condescends to victory

Such as the Present gives, and cannot wait,
Safe in himself as in a fate.

So always firmly he:

He knew to bide his time,

And can his fame abide,

Still patient in his simple faith sublime,
Till the wise years decide.

Great captains, with their guns and drums,
Disturb our judgment for the hour,
But at last silence comes;

These all are gone, and, standing like a tower,
Our children shall behold his fame,

The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man,
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame,
New birth of our new soil, the first American.
From JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL'S Commemoration Ode.

HELPS TO STUDY

As the years have gone on, the fame of Lincoln has grown, not only in the North and South, but in Europe. His wisdom, his patience, and his courage were of the greatest; but what has endeared him to us most is his great kindliness. During the Civil War he was never heard to refer to his enemies, the Confederates, in an unkind way. His courtesy and simplicity even with all the humble people he met remained always the same. This selection is taken from an Ode read at Harvard at the dedication of Commemoration Hall, a building erected to the memory of Harvard men who had died in the war.

4.

world-honored urn"? How was he " 6. What does

1. Why "Martyr Chief "? 2. What is a 66 3. In what ways was Lincoln a new kind of hero? shepherd of mankind "? 5. Why was he trusted? Lowell say about his will? peak," but like "broad level prairies"? him "the first American "?

a

7. Why was his mind not like a mountain8. What leads Lowell to call

Phrases: Cheat of birth, unfair advantage by the accident of birth; wisdom of sincerity, it is wise to be sincere; thwart her genial will, to interfere with her kindly intent or purpose.

For Study with the Glossary: Serf, peer, Plutarch, innative, sagacious.

T

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O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN !

O captain! my captain! our fearful trip is done,

The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought

is won.

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring.

But, O heart! heart! heart!

Oh, the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O captain! my captain! rise up and hear the bells!

10 Rise up! for you the flag is flung, for you the bugle thrills, For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths, for you the shores

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a-crowding;

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning.

Here, captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head!

It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead!

My captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still :
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will.
The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed
and done:

20 From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won.