or its maintenance, at some suitable point yet to
be selected. The suggestion has been made by some of the most
distinguished of its councillors, that the descendants of American
patriots cannot more worthily honor the memory of their sires, or
more effectively promote the safety and perpetuity of the institutions
for which they battled, than by making it their mission to maintain
the American Institute of Civics. The fact that it was conceived,
established, and has been conducted in the spirit of truest
patriotism, and the results which it has already accomplished through
services rendered wholly in the spirit of the words upon its corporate
seal, "Ducit Amor Patriae," would seem to prove its title to the
confidence and support of all who are proud of the fact that their
forbears have been among the founders and defenders of our American
institutions. It may not be a vain hope that this thought will, in
some manner and at some time, take definite shape, perhaps in the form
of a national memorial building at the capital, devoted to the
collection and preservation of material illustrative of the nation's
history and progress, and to memorials of its illustrious dead. As has
been said elsewhere,

Such a building, dedicated by enfranchised manhood to the cause
of human freedom, may include a Hall of History and Civics, for
the collection of appropriate relics, manuscripts, and books of
colonial, continental, revolutionary, and subsequent periods; an
Army and Navy Hall, devoted to exhibits illustrative of military
and naval affairs, including battle-flags, arms, accoutrements,
and similar material; a Memorial Hall, where the memory of
illustrious Americans, statesmen, soldiers, philanthropists, and
other great leaders, may be honored, and their memory perpetuated
in statuary, paintings, mural tablets, and other appropriate
ways, and which shall be to the people of America what
Westminster Abbey is to the people of England--a place where the
great exemplars of virtue, wisdom, and patriotism, the noblest
citizens of the passing years, though dead, shall yet speak and
have salutary influence, through successive generations; and a
Hall of Instruction, which shall be the centre of the nation-wide
activities of this noble American institution, and also of a
school of civics to which American youth may come from every part
of the land t