hich other multitudes died. We sing songs that the
past did write, and speak a language that generations long dead did
fashion.

When De Tocqueville visited our country, he journeyed westward until
he stood upon the very frontier of civilization. Before him lay the
forests and prairies, stretching for thousands of miles toward the
setting sun. But what impressed him most deeply was the civilization
behind him, reaching to the Atlantic--a civilization including towns
and villages, with free institutions, with schoolroom and church and
library. With joy he reflected that the mental and moral harvests
behind him were sufficient to sow the vast unconquered land with
treasure. Thus each to-day is a frontier line upon which the soul
stands. It is the necessity of life for man to journey backward into
the past for food and seed with which to sow the unconquered future.
For each individual yesterday holds the beginnings of art and
architecture. Yesterday holds the beginnings of reform and
philanthropy. Yesterday contains the rise and victory of freedom.
Yesterday holds the first schoolroom and college and library.
Yesterday holds the cross and all its victories over ignorance and
sin. Yesterday is a river pouring its rich floods forward, lending
majesty and momentum to all man's enterprises. Yesterday is a temple
whose high domes and wide walls and flaming altars other hands and
hearts have built. For the individual, memory is a granary for mental
treasure; and, for the race, civilization is a kind of social memory.

Consider the task laid upon memory. The activity and fruitfulness of
the human mind are immeasurable. Reason does not so much weave
thoughts as exhale them. Objects march in caravans through the eye
gate and the ear gate, each provoking its own train of thought. And
the unconscious processes of the mind are of even greater number. The
silent songs that genius hears, the invisible pictures that genius
paints, the hidden castles that genius builds--no building of a city
without can compare for wonder and beauty and richness with the
building processes of the soul within. If some angelic reporter could
reduce all man's thoughts to physical volume, how vast the book would
be! Thoughts do not go single, but march in armies. Feelings and
aspirations move like flocks of caroling songsters. Desires swarm
forth from the soul like bees from a hive. The soul is a city through
whose gates troop innumerable caravans, bearing