parting, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

TO TEACHERS. At this point a review of Chapter V, "Proof-Reading" and
Chapter VI, "The Correction of Themes," of _Practical English
Composition_, Book I, will be found an invaluable exercise.

CHAPTER III

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES

"Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime."
LONGFELLOW.

I. Assignment

Write a biographical note of about two hundred words concerning a
citizen who has just come into public notice.

II. Obtaining the Facts

If the subject of the note is already distinguished, the facts can
usually be collected from books and periodicals. Poole's _Index of
Periodical Literature_ will point the way. Most newspapers keep an
indexed mass of biographical material, which, of course, is at a
reporter's disposal. When these sources fail, the man himself must be
interviewed, which is a task that requires tact, politeness,
persistency, a good memory, and a clear idea of the character and
quantity of the information needed.

III. Models

I

James McHenry was born in Ireland, 1753; came to Philadelphia,
1771; studied medicine under Dr. Benjamin Rush; served in the
Revolutionary War as surgeon; became Washington's secretary,
1778; sat in Congress, 1783-86; was a member of the
Constitutional Convention; was Secretary of War under Washington
and Adams, 1796-1801; and died in Baltimore, 1816. His most
conspicuous public service was rendered in inducing Maryland to
ratify the Constitution. Fort McHenry, the bombardment of which
in 1814 inspired Francis Scott Key to write the _Star-Spangled
Banner_, was named in McHenry's honor.

II

Alexander Hamilton is one of those great Americans of whose
services to the nation no American can afford to be ignorant. As
a soldier in the Revolution, no man possessed more of
Washington's confidence. To him as much as to any one man was
due the movement that resulted in the formation of the
Constitution; he took a leading part in the debates of the
Conventi