having been broken when it reached a little beyond the three-score-andten mark. He was a sickly man, with very poor eyes, but in spite of these physical handicaps his work is of more permanent importance than that of any of the above-mentioned, and he and his work can be quoted in proof of the assertion which will be made further on, that good, hard work, if pursued with lofty motives and love of the work, improves rather than impairs the prospect for long life. Parkman's work is the history of the long struggle of the French (finally ending with the fall of Quebec in 1759) to colonize North America. work is so exhaustive and its style so fascinating that there is nothing left for another historian to do. It is safe enough to pronounce its twelve volumes to be monumental literature.

Before taking leave of our contemporaries, let us mention the names of three famous women who were very old, and who retained their mental equilibrium to the last. These are LUCRETIA MOTT, ELIZABETH CADY STANTON, and SUSAN B. ANTHONY. They were reformers, lecturers, and writers, very prominent in the antislavery agitation. Mrs. Mott was much older than the other two, and died about 1880, at the age of eighty-eight years. Mrs. Stanton died recently at the same age. Miss Anthony was still with us at eighty-six in the discharge of her official duties at the New York State Industrial Home for Inebriates, having received her appointment from Governor Flower. It was mainly owing to her exertions that the law was passed exempting the woman's earnings from liability for the husband's debts. A notable incident in her career is her experience as a voter. She believed that the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments gave women the right to vote, and she accordingly went every year to election and offered her ballot. To get rid of her the board finally concluded to take the ballot and then prosecute her for the offense of illegal voting. This was done and she was fined one hundred dollars, but no effort was ever made to collect the fine.

There was a fourth woman, more famous in her day than the others. She belonged to a family noted for genius and longevity, both of which are conspicuous in her hereditary endowment since she reached the age of eighty-four, and gave to literature a long list of books, the second of which has been translated into many foreign languages. This woman is HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. Those whose memory cannot revert to the time have but a faint idea of the sensation caused by the appearance of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and the great part this book played in bringing about the abolition of American slavery. Mrs. Stowe is referred to here in a spirit of fairness, since the claim is not advanced that the old do all the good work, or that all the work they do is good. Her history counts on the other side; she outlived her usefulness twenty years and gradually lost her memory. The charitably inclined will plead her mental failure as an excuse for her two books attacking the characters of Lord Byron and his sister, charging them with the abominable crime of incest.

Let us now glance backward at the careers of some of the illustrious dead who have made our country great, and have done good work late in their evening of life.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, philosopher, statesman, and patriot, was seventy when he signed the Declaration of Independence; seventy-two when he made the treaty with France which sent Lafayette and his soldiers to aid Washington in capturing Cornwallis and his army at Yorktown, thus securing our independence of England and giving us the opportunity to develop into the great country we now are. When he signed the final treaty of peace with England he was seventy-eight. He lived six years longer, very much troubled with gout, but with clear and unclouded intellect. It is a reasonable conjecture that Franklin might have lived many years longer except for the onerous duties which the ambassadorship imposed on him, depriving him of the fresh air and exercise to which he had always been accustomed. The Continental Congress was too poor to hire clerks for him. He was obliged to do his own drudgery and was greatly overworked. Having been all his life very temperate in eating and a consumer of large quantities of water, it is very likely that the wines and high living that French politeness heaped on him helped the gout to break down his natural hardy constitution.

JOHN ADAMS, Second president (1796 to 1800), after retiring from the presidency was entrusted by his native state with important matters, among them being, when he was eighty-five years old, the drafting of a new constitution for Massachusetts.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, third president (1800 to 1808), effected the Louisiana purchase from Napoleon Bonaparte, together with the territories from the Mississippi to the Pacific Ocean. This famous achievement laid the foundation for the present greatness of our country. After retiring he founded the University of Virginia and for several years was its presiding officer. He died in 1826, on the fourth of July. John Adams died the same date, just fifty years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, sixth president (1824 to 1828), retired at sixty-two, and after that represented his state in congress nineteen years, as long as he lived. His diary, in a number of volumes, is a record to the day he fell from his seat in the house. It is valuable as historic material. He was eighty-one years old and as bright as at any period of his life.

ALBERT GALLATIN (1760 to 1848), statesman, diplomat and scholar, of first rank. He was minister to France for seven years. Returning from that country when he was seventy-two years of age, he was then sent to England on the same mission. On his return from London he retired from public affairs and devoted the remainder of his life to the study of Indian ethnology. He was a leader in this branch of science and consequently an authority. His interest in public as well

as his own private affairs was unabated until the last. He died at eighty-eight, showing no signs of mental atrophy.

This list of old working men of our country could be indefinitely extended, but to prevent this paper from being too long we will cease the enumeration here to make room for reference to some old men in other countries.

WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE, the grand old man of Britain, premier for the fifth time at eighty-five. It is almost incredible that so old a man could have the vigor, mental or physical, to transact so much business as the care of the whole British Empire involves.

ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727), physicist and mathematician, is another illustrious example of mentality retained in extreme old age. He was seventy-four when he solved a problem, proposed by Leibnitz, his celebrated German rival, which was puzzling the mathematicians of Europe. When he died, at the age of eighty-five years, he was president of the Royal Society.

The three HERSCHELS, astronomers, all lived to be old and retained. unclouded minds. That sublime genius, the elder Herschel, the discoverer of the eighth planet of the solar system, reached eighty-five, and the youngest attained nearly the same age.

CAROLINE HERSCHEL, the sister and aunt, lived to be much olderninety-eight. She was given a medal by the Royal Society for astronomical work pursued when she was seventy-eight, and was made an honorary member of the society, as was also another woman who lived a long life devoted to science.

MARY SOMERVILLE was the author of many books of permanent value. Her great work on "Physical Geography," an exhaustive book in two volumes, from which all later writers draw their materials, was not finished until late in life. Her health remained good and she retained an unimpaired mind until the last. She died at the age of ninety-two, in her sleep.

Before canvassing the rest of Europe for instances of prolonged activity let us revert again to the American continent and see what our sister republics of Mexico and Canada can add to our list. Here is a brief sketch of three Canadians and one Mexican.

SIR J. W. DAWSON, the Canadian geologist, if still alive is eightysix. All geologists recognize the value of his numerous books and fossil discoveries, among the most important of which is that of the eozoon canadense, so far as yet known, the oldest form of animal life that appeared on our planet. He was born in 1820, and began to write. and publish books in 1847. The first venture was "The Old Red Sandstones of Nova Scotia," and the practice of bookmaking has been persevered in until recently, a book appearing every year or two. In 1893 he published two-"Salient Points in the Science of the Earth," and the "Canadian Ice Age." It was a favorite theme with Dawson to try to read geological truth into the first chapter of Genesis. His latest books are as good as his first.

DANIEL WILSON was not, like Dawson, a native of Canada. He was Scotch by birth and already eminent as an archaeologist before leaving Scotland. At about twenty-seven he came to Toronto and accepted a professorship in the University, where he remained until his demise. He was a prolific writer of books, some of which, like the "Missing Link," were on the wrong side of the question, but his educational work has seldom been excelled in value and was not impaired by age, which did not quite reach the four-score mark.

GOLDWIN SMITH, perhaps the most illustrious of the trio, is still alive at eighty-three. He is English-born and had achieved prominence before coming to America, having been Regius Professor of History for ten years at Oxford, and author of many books of English history and biography. After reaching our shore he was for three years Professor of History at Cornell, then, in 1871, he accepted. the editorship of a paper at Toronto, where he has since lived. He was fifty-one years old at the time of his elevation to the editorial tripod. Since then he has written many valuable books, his forte being history. His last work of that kind dates back only nine years. During our civil war Goldwin Smith was the solid friend of the Union, and his writings had an immense influence in holding England steadily neutral and preventing her from giving active aid to the Confederacy. Smith is an original thinker and a brilliant writer. His luminous and expressive style makes it a pleasure to read anything he writes. Besides being a historian he is a scholar, linguist, and translator of the old poets-Greek and Latin, and a critic of the first rank. His last volume of translations of the Greek tragedies appeared twelve years ago. How long his activity will hold out no one can divine, but there is no sign of senility present as yet.

PORFIRIO DIAZ, the president of Mexico, is now seventy-six years. old. All that the country now is it owes to this able and enlightened man who, from the scene of chronic and chaotic revolution has changed it to a prosperous and progressive republic, respected by the rest of the world. Every well-wisher of the human race must hope to see his term of activity last many years more.

Turning to France, we find many examples of long, active life, of which we will quote a few.

BUFFON, zoologist, lived to eighty-one.

VOLTAIRE, lived to eighty-four.

FONTENELLE (1657-1757) lived to one hundred. He wrote many books in both prose and poetry on music, drama and romance, most of which are now forgotten, although famous in their day. He is the greatest French humorist and much of his wit is yet extant. His disposition to joke persisted to the very last. As he lay on his death bed just before he drew his last breath, his friends standing around to see him die, another friend whom he had not seen for a long time came in to pay his last respects. Fontenelle faintly recognized his friend and this little dialogue followed:

Friend: Est que vous souffrez?

Fontenelle: Non j'n souffre pas, de tout.

Friend: Ne souffrez pas! Pourquoi etes vous au lit?
Fontenelle: C'est une certaine, petite difficulté.

Friend: Une difficulté! Quelle difficulté?

Fontenelle: C'est une difficulté d'etre.

With a faint smile on his lips Fontenelle shut his eyes and the next moment was gone.

Coming to Germany, we find so many names of scholars who have left us work of permanent value done after reaching the four-score mark that it seems invidious to select among them. We will mention a few.

SCHLOSSER (1775-1861), historian, finished his "Weltgeschichte" (History of the World) five years before he died. After that he wrote his last book, "The Critic of Dante." His industry as a writer was remarkable and his last books were not inferior to the rest.

ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT (1769-1859), scientist, naturalist, explorer, lecturer and author, finished the last volume of his greatest work, "The Cosmos," during the last year of his life.

WOLFGANG VON GOETHE (1749-1832), the immortal, called by his contemporaries the all-sided. Goethe is the greatest of German poets and the greatest German student of nature. Saying nothing of his poetry, his botanical researches, some of which were made after he was past eighty, will assure him a place among the revelators of the secrets of nature and a fame that will endure as long as civilization itself.

Italy, the land of song and of great deeds since the first dawn of history, has her full share of famous old men, of whom a few will be named.

LOUIS CORNARO (1467-1566), a Venetian nobleman, was rather wild in his youth, and at forty had so impaired his health by his riotous living and self-indulgence that a fit of sickness overtook him which threatened to be fatal. However, he recovered by the narrowest margin and lived the rest of his ninety-nine years in a sober, temperate, and cheerful manner. At the age of eighty-three he wrote his first book, "A Sure and Certain Method of Attaining a Long and Healthful Life.' At eighty-eight, ninety-one, and ninety-five he wrote books on the same subject. The main point in his "Sure and Certain Method" was temperance in eating. He subsisted during the latter part of his life on one egg a day.

MICHAELANGELO (1475-1564), architect, painter, sculptor, and poet, and master in all four professions. Among his greatest works at Rome are the Sixtine Chapel and Saint Peter's Cathedral. He died before he had finished the latter, on which, at eighty-nine, he was still at work. He was never married, but after he was past sixty he fell violently in love with Vittoria Collonna. As she was young and beautiful and he old and very homely he said nothing about it to her, but took it all out in writing sonnets to her that are aflame with sentiments