concentration in cities is a great evil. It is an evil that should be
counteracted. As I was saying last evening to the Colonial
Dames,--Washington, if he had done nothing else, would be remembered
to-day as the founder of the Order of the Cincinnati. The figure of
Cincinnatus at the plough appeals powerfully to American manhood. Many a
time in after years Cincinnatus wished that he had never left that
plough. Often amid the din of battle he heard the voice saying to him,
'Back to the Land!'

"It was the same voice I seemed to hear when I received the letter of
your secretary asking me to address this grange. As I left the smoke of
the city behind me and looked up at your granite hills, I said, 'Here is
where they make men!' As I have been partaking of the bountiful repast
prepared by the ladies of the grange, your chairman has been telling me
something about this community. It is a grand community to live in. Here
are no swollen fortunes; here industry, frugality, and temperance reign.
These are the qualities which have given New England its great place in
the councils of the nation. I know there are those who say that it is
the tariff that has given it that place; but they do not know New
England. There are those at this table who can remember the time when
eighty-two ruddy-cheeked boys and girls trooped merrily to the little
red schoolhouse under the hill. In the light of such facts as these, who
can be a pessimist?

"But I must not dwell upon the past; the Boy Scouts of America prepare
for the future. I am reminded that I am not at this moment addressing
the Boy Scouts of America,--they come to-morrow at the same hour,--but
the principle is the same. Even as the Boy Scouts of America look only
at the future, so do you. We must not linger fondly on the days when
cows grazed on Boston Common. The purpose of this society is to save