JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 17 
umphal tour has now become a portion of our national history, but 
who can attempt to measure the mighty influence which it must 
wield in cementing even more closely the bonds of loyalty and 
affection within which our Empire is contained ? 
Another event of the present year, to which I would briefly 
allude, is the celebration of the one thousandth anniversary of the 
death of King Alfred the Great. This event, which took place at 
Winchester, in July, should interest us not only as students but as 
members of the great Anglo-Saxon race. In none of our early kings 
can we find so truely depicted these cardinal virtues which have since 
become synonymous with the Anglo-Saxon character. Himself a 
scholar, he thus early taught us that the light of education and of 
religion is essential to our national well-being. The founder of 
so much that is valuable is our legal and political institutions, he 
lived out in his own life that love for even and impartial justice for 
which the Saxon race have ever since been famous. 
Among the important events of the present year, we must also 
make mention of the Pan-American Exposition, held at Buffalo. 
This important event transpiring so near our doors, we are the more 
likely to overlook its significance. The holding of such an exposi- 
tion, limited to the two Americas, must do much to awaken in their 
peoples a truer conception of the mighty resources they possess and 
aid much in facilitating trade and commerce between them. But it is 
not, I fear, on account of its contributions to commerce and art that 
this exposition will best be known to posterity. Within its confines, 
on Friday, Sept. 6th, was committed one of the most awful crimes 
against our common civilization which has stained the annals of his- 
tory. When we contemplate all that is implied in the assassination of 
President McKinley, we surely must be oppressed with the thought 
of how great forces of evil lie slumbering within our body politic, 
and how weak is the chain of our social fabric if its power is to be 
judged by the strength of its weakest link. When we view these 
awful lessons of social depravity, are we not justified in concluding, 
that notwithstanding the boasted advances of our present generation, 
animal rather than moral forces still sway the destines of human life 
and action? 
To many students of sociology there will no doubt seem to 
exist at least an indirect causal connection between this awful crime 
