THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.

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is, according to popular verdict, nervous; and it is quite pertinent to ask the cause of such a trait—whether it is a permanent characteristic, and its probable effect upon our welfare, present and future.

It has been somewhat widely discussed, and .various causes assigned. Some hold that it is due to the dryness of our climate; others consider the electrical currents of this continent especially stimulating,'and that their great prevalence affects our tem­perament. Still others believe that it depends on the large quantity of meat which forms so prominent a part of the diet of our people. Again it is held to be indicative of a defective nervous development, an irritable unstable condition which accompanies a weak organization. This is a favorite theory with those who believe in the poor, frail physique of the Americans.

It may be that all these contribute to the same end, though they are somewhat contradictory.

We know that food and climate have a powerful influence upon the general con­dition of a race; its wealth, its physical development, its mental and moral status. The immense amount of work which has advanced this nation so rapidly could never have been done except by a people well fed. Our relatively small population, dis­tributed over a large and fertile territory, has made food cheap and plentiful, so that even our poorest classes, as a rule, have had an abundant and nourishing diet. Mental quickness and ingenuity, large brain power, and equally great muscular activity and endurance, are a legitimate result. And it is true that muscle without the propelling, directing vitality or nervous force would have been useless. Our nervousness, then, is what has done it, and if it has been sometimes over-stimulated, there is a comfort in knowing that, up to date, it has made an unparalleled record.

The question whether the perfected American type has been reached must cer­tainly be answered in the negative. We are yet in the formative stage, and conditions tend to keep us there. While our advancement in business methods, in manufactures, agriculture and scientific research, shows great precocity in this infant nation; we must remember that we have inherited much, and that we have been continually receiving from outside both brawn and brain, so that what we might be if left to ourselves is yet to be determined. Successive generations of a homogenous people are necessary to perfect a type, and only during our colonial period, before the Revolution, was there a century in which our evolution was comparatively undisturbed, and what is distinctively American belongs to the influence of that time.

The handful of men and women who set their faces westward builded better than they knew. They braved undreamed of perils in the wilderness, but they conquered a new world. Before them, waiting for the magic touch of intelligent toil, was a conti­nent with limitless forests, mighty lakes and rivers, golden, swelling prairies, treasures of precious metals, and all the harvests which were garnered in the bosom of mother earth for the future blessing of her children.

The star moved westward; they followed. Through blood and flame, in poverty and distress, they fought their way; beaten back only to advance farther tomorrow, stronger for the rebuff, discovering new resources which lured them forward, even though the way was beset by a new foe; ever on, till they reached the shore of the sunset land and gazed on the waters of a new ocean.

I need not bring statistics to show you what has been the result of that pioneering. This great Exposition, which holds the world by sample, as one might say, brings us into very favorable comparison with the older countries, and if the American bosom swells with pride and complacency, and if American lips utter words of self-congratu­lation, and, perchance, of self-laudation, there is surely sufficient material excuse to free us from the charge of mere bombast and save us from ridicule.

Those who share in our triumphs today are not all descended from the Revolu­tionary forefathers. Fair Columbia, holding aloft her liberty cap, and lighting with flaming torch the path across the deep, has smiled a welcome to millions of eager helpers. Not from the ranks of the rich and happy, certainly, but largely from the

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