108 HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME, AND ASIA 



the star-spangled banner has crossed the Pacific Ocean and estab- 

 lished a communication between Young America and Old Asia; but 

 the starting-point has been changed, and it is now from the coast 

 of California that the swift steamers which connect the two shores 

 are sent. 



I remember the time, not yet far off, when the American trade 

 almost equaled that of England, and when at Canton and Shang-hai 

 the "Merchant Princes" of Boston and New York did not yield 

 either in their wealth or their influence to those of London and 

 Liverpool. Looking backward, I cannot but think with gratefulness 

 and not without some melancholy of the happy hours I have spent 

 in the house of Messrs. Russell & Co., whose head, Edward Cun- 

 ningham of Boston, was the most popular, the most esteemed, and 

 the most justly influential citizen of Shang-hai. 



The civilizing mission which the United States have taken upon 

 themselves has been extended beyond the already large frontiers 

 of their dominion; the occupation of the Hawaiian and Philippine 

 Islands has created new desires in a commercial and industrial na- 

 tion, turned it into a political power which, in the future destinies 

 of this new Mediterranean called the Pacific Ocean, has the right 

 to claim its share of legitimate influence. 



May I be permitted at the end of this lecture to express my grati- 

 tude to those who did me the honor and gave me the pleasure of an 

 invitation to come among you, and to crave the indulgence of my 

 hearers, ill as I have performed my task. 



Citizen of the great Sister Republic, I do not forget that being 

 born on the banks of the mighty Mississippi, at New Orleans, the 

 first years of my life were spent under the shelter of the star-spangled 

 banner of the Union; I feel happy to speak before fellow country- 

 men, regretting the absence of the world-renowned traveler and 

 scholar, my friend, the Hon. William Woodville Rockhill. 



SUPPLEMENTARY PAPER 



A short paper was read before this Section by Professor W. S. Ferguson, of the 

 University of California, on "Plutarch as a Comparative Biographer." The 

 line of argument chosen by the speaker was first to demonstrate that one of the 

 principles on which Plutarch chose the material for his Lives was the similarity 

 in character and career to be established between the Greek and the Roman 

 hero; and second, to exhibit in the case of one book (the 10th), dealing with 

 Pericles and Fabius Maximus, the historical perversions which this principle 

 occasioned. 



