Then I shall proceed to recount to them how Christopher Columbus, in
an effort to circumnavigate the globe and reach the eastern coast of
Asia, failed in this undertaking, but made a far greater achievement
in the discovery of America. If, at this point, the old man is
leaning forward two or three inches instead of one, I may ask, in
dramatic style, where we should all be to-day if Columbus had reached
Asia instead of America--in other words, if this principle of
dialectic efficiency had not been in full force. Just here, to give
opportunity for possible applause, I shall take the handkerchief from
my pocket with much deliberation, unfold it carefully, and wipe my
face and forehead as an evidence that dispensing second-hand thoughts
is a sweat-producing process.

Then, in a sort of sublimated frenzy, I shall fairly deluge them with
illustrations, telling how the establishment of rural mail-routes led
to improved roads and these, in turn, to consolidated schools and
better conditions of living in the country; how the potato-beetle,
which seems at first to be a scourge, was really a blessing in
disguise in that it set farmers to studying improved methods
resulting in largely increased crops, and how the scale has done a
like service for fruit-growers; how a friend of mine was drilling for
oil and found water instead, and now has an artesian well that
supplies water in great abundance, and how one Mr. Hellriegel, back
in 1886, made the incidental discovery that leguminous plants fixate
nitrogen, and, hence, our fields of clover, alfalfa, cow-peas, and
soybeans.

It will not seem out of place if I recall to them how the Revolution
gave us Washington, the Adamses, Hancock, Madison, Franklin,