THE GEOSPHERES 447 



engineers of other countries can do it, American engineers are 

 called to the task. Our progress in application has combined 

 with our progress in knowledge to strengthen individual char- 

 acter, to produce a free and forceful individuality greater than 

 other countries know — an individuality splendidly expressed in 

 the faces before me. This exalted individuality is displayed in 

 more perfect coordination of thought, in more complete union 

 of hand and brain than the world has ever seen before ; it is re- 

 vealed in moral uprightness and strength of character, in per- 

 sonal courage, even in that splendid marksmanship — the highest 

 expression of coordination between mind and muscle — which is 

 America's latest revelation to the world. The individual char- 

 acter of Americans gives national character to America; our 

 patriotism, the spontaneous product of free minds, is broader 

 and deeper than any sentiment brought out by royal edict; no 

 other country could match the recent impulse which prompted 

 the millionaire clubman of New York and the roving cowboy 

 of Arizona to stand shoulder to shoulder in a war for hu- 

 manity's sake. It is the unequaled individuality of the free 

 citizen, united and controlled by a dominant idea, that forms 

 the basis of our indomitable social organization, a social organ- 

 ization faintly expressed by that coordination in army and navy 

 which overwhelms opposition. Complete as is our coordination 

 in military matters, it is much more perfect in civil life, in 

 that unceasing conquest over nature toward which our deepest 

 thoughts are bent ; and our 70,000,000 individuals, each a tower 

 of individual strength, are kept in touch by telegraph and tele- 

 phone and press, united in thought and purpose, knit into the 

 strongest social and political fabric the world has seen. It is 

 this social fabric, the expression of thought and purpose, which 

 I have in' mind in referring to the psychosphere, most delicate 

 yet noblest of the geospheres, which seems to be enveloping our 

 planet and commencing the control of the rock-sphere, the 

 water-sphere, and even the air-sphere for the good of humanity. 

 And it is this conquest of the powers and resources of the ex- 

 terior spheres, inspired by intellectual freedom and guided by 

 liberal education like that which you dispense, that has placed 

 America in the foremost rank among the nations of the earth. 



