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Once, when I had been telling a group of children some stories of the heroes of old, one of the number who had always followed the tales with breathless interest, said:

“Tell us the story of a hero of to-day!”

“There are no heroes to-day, no real heroes, are there?” put in another. “Oh, of course I know there are great men who do important things,” he added, “but there isn’t any story to what they do, is there?—anything like the daring deeds of the knights and vikings, or of the American pioneers?”

Of course I tried to tell the children that the times in which we live bring out as true hero stuff as any time gone by. Nay, I grew quite eloquent in speaking of the many phases of our complex modern life with its many duties, its new conscience, its new feeling of individual responsibility for the welfare of all.

Then I told the stories of some of the heroes who are fighting “in the patient modern way,” not against flesh and blood with sword and spear, but against the unseen enemies of disease and pestilence; against the monster evils of ignorance, poverty and injustice. We decided that the “modern viking,” Jacob Riis, had a story that was as truly adventurous as those of the plundering vikings of long ago; that Dr. Grenfell, the strong friend of Labrador, had certainly proved that life might be a splendid adventure; and that the account of Captain Scott’s noble conquest of every danger and hardship, and at the last of disappointment and defeat itself, was indeed an “undying story.” Joyously we followed the trail of that splendid hero of the heights, John Muir, and of that gentle lover of the friendly by-paths of Nature, John Burroughs, and found that there was no spot in woods or fields, among mountains or streams, that did not have its wonder tale. The stories of those brave souls—like Edward Trudeau, the good physician of Saranac, and Samuel Pierpont Langley, the inventor of the heavier-than-air flying-machine, who struggled undaunted in the face of failure for a success that only those who should come after them might enjoy, were particularly inspiring. From them we turned to the heroic figure of the “prophet-engineer,” General Goethals, who proved that faith and perseverance can truly remove mountains; and Herbert C. Hoover, master of mines and of men, whose great talent for organization and efficient management brought bread to starving millions.

Carlyle has said that “the history of what man has accomplished in this world is at bottom the History of the Great Men who have worked here.” When the real history of our day is written, will it not be seen that some of its most important and significant chapters are those which have nothing to do with great cataclysms, such as the wars of nation against nation? Will it not be seen that the victories of peace are not only “no less renowned than war,” but that they are, in truth, the most enduring? These “heroes of to-day”—doctor, naturalist, explorer, missionary, engineer, inventor, journalist, patriot—workers for humanity in many places and in many ways, are indeed

“A glorious company, the flower of men,

To serve as model for the mighty world,

And be the fair beginning of a time.”