Constable to France, a General-in-Chief to Russia and still again a
Lieutenant to Gustavus Adolphus. If evidence were needed of the vigor
of the Scottish race, it is readily forthcoming in the fact that for
five hundred years the Land O'Cakes enriched the world with the
surplus of her able men.

Nurse of heroes, nurse of martyrs, nurse of freemen, are titles which
belong of right to our Motherland and she has been justified of her
children, at home and abroad. The rolls of honor of many countries and
many climes bear their names; there is no field of distinction whether
it be of thought or of action that has not witnessed their triumphs.
That Scotland has yielded more than her share of the men who have gone
forth to the conquest of the world is largely due to the fact that it
was part of her discipline that men must first conquer themselves. The
weakest of them felt that restraining influence, and the striving
after the Scottish ideal, however feeble, has been a protection
against sinking into utter baseness. The most wayward scions of the
Scottish family have known that influence, and have borne testimony to
the beauty of the homely virtues which they failed to practice and the
nobility of aspirations which fell short of controlling their life.

It belongs to the character and antecedents of Scotsmen that the
attribute of national independence should take so high a place among
the objects of human effort and desire. It was because Scotland
settled for all time, six hundred years ago, her place as an
independent State that she proved herself capable of begetting men
like John Knox, Robert Burns and Walter Scott. It is because the vigor
of the Scottish race and the adaptiveness of the Scottish genius
remain to-day unimpaired, that the lustre of Scottish-names shone so
brilliantly during the World War. It may be confidently asserted that,