6. Owing to the rain, it was decided to postpone the game.

7. Speaking generally, it may be said that he excels in description.

EXERCISES

I

1. Write two sentences, one showing that the infinitive is a noun, the other showing that the participle is an adjective. 2. Illustrate by sentences the difference between the infinitive in ing and the present participle.

II

Give the forms of the infinitive and the forms of the participle for do, have, sit, set, lay, lie.

III

Read aloud this extract from Southey's Cataract of Lodore. Pronounce each final g distinctly but not defiantly:

Retreating and beating and meeting and sheeting,
Delaying and straying and playing and spraying,
Advancing and prancing and glancing and dancing,
Recoiling, turmoiling and toiling and boiling,

And thumping and plumping and bumping and jumping,
And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing;
And so never ending, but always descending,
Sounds and motions for ever and ever are blending
All at once and all o'er, with a mighty uproar,
And this way the water comes down at Lodore.

IV

Show by two sentences of your own how the participle may help you in placing the emphasis.

CHAPTER LXXVII

II. OUR FLAG

For Study and Composition

If The Star-Spangled Banner is the greatest poem written about our flag, the following selection seems to me the best interpretation of our flag that has yet been made. Francis Scott Key took an incident, an incident that really happened, and made it live forever and teach its lesson forever. Longfellow did the same in Paul Revere's Ride. But in this selection Mr. Lane does not tell of any incident in the history of our flag. He imagines that the flag can talk and he tells what it says. The flag is explaining what it really stands for. Of course no flag can talk; but if the Star-Spangled Banner could talk this is just what I think it would say. The sum of it all is that the flag is nothing in itself; it merely represents the strength or the weakness of the American people. It is like a thermometer. The thermometer is not the cause of cold or balmy weather. It records temperature; it does not make it. The makers of temperature are the sun, the movements of the earth, the winds, the rains, the clouds, the storms. So the people of America, the men

and women, the boys and girls, you and I,

we are the makers of the flag. This is a great thought, greatly but simply expressed by Mr. Lane:

This morning as I passed into the Land Office, the Flag dropped me a most cordial salutation, and from its rippling folds I heard it say: "Good morning, Mr. Flag Maker."

"I beg your pardon, Old Glory," I said; "aren't you mistaken? I am not the President of the United States nor a member of Congress nor even a general in the army. I am only a Government clerk."

"I greet you again, Mr. Flag Maker," replied the gay voice; "I know you well. You are the man who worked in the swelter of yesterday straightening out the tangle of that farmer's homestead in Idaho, or perhaps you found the mistake in the Indian contract in Oklahoma, or helped to clear that patent for the hopeful inventor in New York, or pushed the opening of that new ditch in Colorado, or made that mine in Illinois more safe, or brought relief to the old soldier in Wyoming. No matter, whichever one of these beneficent individuals you may happen to be, I give you greeting, Mr. Flag Maker."

I was about to pass on, when the Flag stopped me with these words:

"Yesterday the President spoke a word that made happier the future of ten million peons in Mexico; but that act looms no larger on the flag than the struggle which the boy in Georgia is making to win the Corn Club prize this summer.

"Yesterday the Congress spoke a word which will open the door of Alaska; but a mother in Michigan worked from sunrise until far into the night to give her boy an education. She, too, is making the flag.

"Yesterday we made a new law to prevent financial panics, and yesterday, maybe, a school teacher in Ohio taught his first letters to a boy who will one day write a song that will give cheer to the millions of our race. We are all making the flag."

"But," I said impatiently, "these people were only working!" Then came a great shout from the Flag:

"The work that we do is the making of the flag.

"I am not the flag; not at all. I am nothing more than its shadow.

"I am whatever you make me, nothing more.

"I a

I am your belief in yourself, your dream of what a People may become.

"I live a changing life, a life of moods and passions, of heartbreaks and tired muscles.

"Sometimes I am strong with pride, when workmen do an honest piece of work, fitting rails together truly.

"Sometimes I droop, for then purpose has gone from me, and cynically I play the coward.

"Sometimes I am loud, garish, and full of that ego that blasts judgment.

"But always, I am all that you hope to be, and have the courage to try for.

"I am song and fear, struggle and panic, and ennobling hope. "I am the day's work of the weakest man, and the largest dream of the most daring.

"I am the Constitution and the courts, the statutes and the statute makers, soldier and dreadnaught, drayman and street sweep, cook, counselor, and clerk.

"I am the battle of yesterday, and the mistake of to-morrow. "I am the clutch of an idea, and the reasoned purpose of resolution.

"I am no more than what you believe me to be, and I am all that you believe I can be.

"I am what you make me, nothing more.

"I swing before your eyes as a bright gleam of color, a symbol of yourself, the pictured suggestion of that big thing which makes this nation. My stars and my stripes are your dream and your labors. They are bright with cheer, brilliant with courage, firm with faith, because you have made them so out of your hearts.

For you are the makers of the flag and it is well that you glory in the making."

- FRANKLIN K. LANE: Makers of the Flag.

I.

EXERCISE

Put into as few words as possible the central thought of Makers of the Flag.

99 66

2. How did "the boy in Georgia," "a mother in Michia school teacher in Ohio " help make the flag? 3. How might they have helped to unmake it?

gan,"

4. How was Francis Scott Key a maker of the flag? 5. How has your state helped to make the flag?

6. Tell something about the work of the "soldier and dreadnaught, drayman and street sweep, cook, counselor, and clerk." How are they makers of the flag?

7. Who is the best flag maker you know?

8. How do "yesterday" and "to-morrow" contribute to the making of the flag?

9. Who can make the best short talk on "A New View of Our Flag"?

10. Who can write the best composition, of not more than four paragraphs, on the same subject?