ave been singularly sturdy, honest, normal and consistent,
and which, therefore, is an example to his countrymen that may in
these somewhat hectic times well be considered and perhaps even
emulated.

At the risk, however, of entering the paranoiac's clinic it would seem
almost necessary if not even desirable to apply the record discussed
to the situation which confronts us in these days, since biography has
no special significance unless it {259} brings to others some more or
less effective stimulus to better and greater endeavor on their own
part.

If, therefore, the life and record of a man like Leonard Wood is to be
of value to others it must to some extent at least be considered in
relation to the events of his day and time. These events have been
sufficiently startling in the light of all previous history to make it
perhaps permissible to glance over them.

Roughly speaking, since Wood was born transportation has become so
perfected that, in the light of our navy's recent accomplishments with
the seaplane, it is now possible for a human being to go from New York
to London in the same period of time that it took then to go from New
York to New London. It is fair to assume then that the distance of New
York from London so far as human travel goes is or will shortly be the
same as the distance of New York from New London when Wood was born.

Roughly speaking since Wood was born intercourse between persons by
means of conversation has become so perfected that it is now possible
for {260} two people, one in New York and the other in San Francisco,
to converse over the telephone--wireless or otherwise--as easily as
could two persons when Wood was born talk from one room to another
through an open doorway. So that for practical purposes the three or
four thousand mile breadth of this continent is reduced to what then
was a matter of ten feet.

One might continue indefinitely, but these two examples are
sufficient. If San Francisco is no further away than the next room and
if London can be reached as quickly as New London, and if myriads of
other physical changes of this sort have occurred in sixty years, then
it is fair to assume that there has been an equal amount of resulting
psychological change. These changes in the relation of man to his
surroundings and the consequent changes in his relations to himself
and his fellow beings have probably done more to rearrange the world
on a different basis than all the devel