FROM being an ill-built, ill-paved town, striking only from the painful contrast between the great public buildings and their surroundings, Washington has been changed into a singularly attractive city, with a peculiar character of its own, and giving great promise for the future. It is a government city, and nothing else. It has practically no manufactures and no commerce, and its population is made up of persons engaged in the government service, and of those who supply their wants, together with a constantly increasing class of people who come to dwell there because it is a pleasant place in which to live. The result is that the business quarters of Washington are comparatively small and the residence quarters large, while both are constantly growing and improving. The city has followed in its expansion the plan of L'Enfant, the French engineer, and thus has a character all its own, producing by its system of avenues a grateful irregularity of design, and many open spaces which, like the streets, are planted with trees and shrubs.

It is an excellent thing that the original idea of the founders has thus been carried out, and that we have for our capital a city which is a government city and nothing else. It is far better that the government of a great country should have a city to itself, and not be lost in the turmoil of some vast metropolis where its presence is of little importance, and where it would be subject to local influences which might readily in a country like ours be most unfortunate for our general welfare. There was a time when a widespread feeling existed that the capital was not worthy of a country like the United States, but that day has long since passed. In its development Washington has become or is becoming in all material ways everything that the capital of the United States should be, and yet it has not lost and never will lose its peculiar and important character as the home of the government.

There is, however, something more to all this than the merely material side. In a country like

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ours it is especially desirable to preserve all historic and patriotic associations. If, after the war, the capital had been removed, all these associations which have gathered about Washington would have been lost, and we should have begun over again with an entirely new city to which no interest attached beyond the fact that it was one day to be the capital of the country. About the home of the national government memories are sure to cluster, and in a centurya long time in a new country-these memories have gathered fast. If the history of all the events that have taken place in Washington since 1800 were to be written, we should have a fairly complete story of the United States. With the public buildings of Washington are associated the lives and deeds of all the great public men of the country, and within her limits the events have occurred and the decisions have been taken which have settled the fate of the Union.

It is well to have such a city, and it is still better to preserve and develop it. It is well to have one place where people may come from all parts of our broad land, where they must forget all local interests and remember only that they are citizens of the United States. In such a place not only can they find much that is of interest and instruction, but they are in the midst of memories and associations which tell them at every step that they are citizens of a great nation with a great past. It is the city that Washington founded; it bears his name and is a part of his history. From the obelisk reared in his honor, a noble shaft glittering in the sunlight, or standing pure and clear against the clouds, we can look far away down the broad river to the place where he sleeps, at his much-loved Mount Vernon. All this is sentiment, no doubt; but, after all, it is true sentiment which ennobles nations and makes a people capable of great deeds. It is well to have a capital city not only beautiful and prosperous, but belonging to no county and to no State, one that is the heritage of all the people, and that tells no story but that of national life and national union.