esulted in the completion of the
Washington Monument after so many years' delay. He conceived
and accomplished the idea of consecrating the beautiful chamber
of the old House of Representatives as a Memorial Hall where
should stand forever the statues of the great men of the States.
So far, of late, as the prosperity and wise administration
of the Smithsonian Institution has depended upon the action
of Congress it has been due to him. Above all, the beautiful
National Library building, unequalled among buildings of its
class in the world, was in a large measure the result of his
persistent effort and powerful influence, and stands as an
enduring monument to his fame. There can be no more beautiful
and enviable memorial to any man than a portrait upon the
walls of a great college in the gallery where the figures
and faces of its benefactors are collected. Mr. Morrill
deserves this expression of honor and gratitude at the hands
of at least one great institution of learning in every American
State. To his wise foresight is due the ample endowment of
Agricultural or Technical colleges in every State in the Union.

He came from a small State, thinly settled--from a frontier
State. His advantages of education were those only which
the public schools of the neighborhood afforded. All his
life, with a brief interval, was spent in the same town,
nine miles from any railroad, except when absent in the public
service. But there was no touch of provincialism in him.
Everything about him was broad, national, American. His intellect
and soul, his conceptions of statesmanship and of duty expanded
as the country grew and as the demands upon him increased.
He was in every respect as competent to legislate for fifty
States as for thirteen. He would have been as competent to
legislate for an entire continent so long as that legislation
were to be governed, restrained, inspired by the principles
in which our Union is founded and the maxims of the men who
builded it.

He was no dreamer, no idealist, no sentimentalist. He was
practical, wise, prudent. In whatever assembly he was found
he represented the solid sense of the meeting. But still
he never departed from the loftiest ideals. On any question
involving righteousness or freedom you would as soon have
had doubt of George Washington's position as of his. He had
no duplicity, no indirection, no diplomacy. He was frank,
plain-spoken, simple-hearted. He had no faculty