respect. The ministers of European nations on such occasions are accustomed to wear an elaborate uniform, brilliant in colors and glittering with gold. The American ministers, however, usually dress in plain black, as becomes. representatives of a republic. 3. In nearly every important foreign city lives another agent of the state department, called a consul. He looks out for the business interests of American merchants and sailors. If you should be traveling in Europe or South America and should be in difficulty, the American consul would be the one to whom to apply for assistance. He would not let one of his countrymen be treated badly. 4. Foreign nations, in like manner, have at Washington ambassadors or ministers, who carry on their business with our government through the secretary of state. Foreign consuls, too, are found in all our principal cities. 5. The War Department.-Every nation in the world has an army. The number of soldiers in different countries varies, to be sure. France and Germany have each a half million men always under arms, while the United States has only about 25,000. 6. Why is it necessary to keep soldiers? Merely because nations cannot always settle their disputes peaceably. If two men cannot agree on a question of business, they can have the matter decided by a court of law. And whatever the court may decide must be obeyed. disputants should try to settle their quarrel by would be very apt to find themselves in jail. If the two a fight, they But nations. unfortunately have no such means of keeping order and of determining justice. So each nation has to protect itself. And the army is the means of national defense. 7. Besides this, there are sometimes riots and insurrections which the police are not able to put down. Then the soldiers must give their help. 8. So an army is necessary for the protection of a nation against attack from abroad, and also to keep order-in other words, to see to it that the laws are obeyed at home. 9. The army of the United States is small, partly because we have little fear of being attacked and partly because each state also keeps soldiers. The state soldiers are usually called the "national guard." We shall speak about them later. 10. Our republic has had several wars, in which the army was very necessary. As you will remember, it was by the war of the revolution that we won our independence from England, and so became a free republic. In that war —a war which lasted eight years—British armies invaded our country, but after many bloody battles they were finally driven away. General George Washington commanded the American soldiers throughout this war, and he was aided by French soldiers who came across the ocean to help us. II. In 1812 we had a second war with England, which lasted two years. 12. In 1846 we most unfortunately were drawn into a war with our sister republic, Mexico. This also lasted two years. The American armies invaded Mexico, won many battles, and thus compelled the Mexicans, in making peace, to give up a large territory to the United States. 13. In 1861, saddest of all, we had a war among ourselves a civil war. Several of the southern states, as we have seen (p. 131), being dissatisfied with the Union, attempted to withdraw from it and to form a new republic, which they called the Confederate States of America. But the rest of the people refused to permit the old Union to be destroyed. Large armies were formed on both sides, and many desperate battles were fought. At length, after four years of war, the Union armies were victorious. 14. The management of an army, even in time of peace, takes much time and work. The president of the United States is by the Constitution the chief commander of the army. But the details of its management are left to one of the cabinet, the secretary of war. He is the head of the war department, which includes a number of assistants and clerks. 15. The war department conducts a military school at West Point, on the Hudson River. Each member of the national house of representatives has the privilege of naming one boy as a candidate for admission to the military academy, and a few are named by the president.* These candidates, however, have to pass an examination, both as to their knowledge and as to their bodily health and strength, before they can become "cadets," as the students at West Point are called. Those who succeed in passing through the four years of severe study required in the academy, are appointed to the rank of second lieutenant in the army. The military academy is an excellent school, * The law requires that appointments be made by the president of the United States. But the president permits representatives to name candidates, and in many districts a competitive examination is held, the boy who does the best being nominated. and keeps our army supplied with very well trained officers. 16. Since the close of the civil war the active duty of the army has consisted mostly in keeping the Indians in order. We shall have more to say of this when we come to speak of the American Indians. 17. Three War Poems.-Mrs. Julia Ward Howe once visited the camps of the Union army in Virginia during the civil war, and on her return wrote the poem known as the "Battle Hymn of the Republic." Mrs. Howe has been active through many years as an author and lecturer. Perhaps this is her best known poem. 18. Lord Byron, a famous English poet, who translated the "Greek War Song," sympathized so warmly with the Greeks in their war of independence against the tyrannical Turks that he not only gave them money, but went in person to share in the war. He died in Greece in 1824, before the war was ended. 19. Theodore O'Hara, an American soldier in the Mexican war, wrote "The Bivouac of the Dead" in 1847, for the dedication of a cemetery devoted to the Kentuckians who fell at the battle of Buena Vista. 20. These three poems are grouped here as expressing different phases of emotion aroused by the stern realities of war. MINE Battle Hymn of the Republic JULIA WARD HOWE eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord : He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword: His truth is marching on. I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps; They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps; I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps: His day is marching on. 66 I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel : ye deal with My contemners, so My grace with you shall deal; 'As Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel, Since God is marching on." He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat : Oh! be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet ! Our God is marching on. In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, |
