I should be unpatriotic and uncivil did I not deeply realize and warmly announce that this is historic ground. Here, more than a century ago, principles were proclaimed and deeds done that flashed on the world like a lightning stroke and illumined the way to liberty and law with a brilliancy that startled kings and potentates on their ancestral but treacherous thrones. Those principles found fertile soil in the courageous bosoms of colonists, who, embodying them in their creeds, vindicated them with their valor and their blood.
Near by are Plymouth Rock, Dorchester Heights, Boston Common, Bunker Hill, Cambridge, Concord and Lexington—all names that have helped to kindle the fires of patriotism in the bosoms of succeeding generations of American school boys and to keep them burning until at the close of loyal lives their bodies were laid away in the soil they so early learned to love so well.