in either man or woman.

What is that indefinable something which makes certain people delightful to us? What is it that seems to throw an atmosphere of warmth, and heartiness, and good-nature about us, and drives away from us everything that is sour, and bitter, and disappointing? Addison, if I remember aright, wrote an essay on "The art of being agreeable;" and we remember that one of the most charming of Emerson's essays is entitled "Manners." And yet, delightful as these papers are, they fall short of telling us how to do it. If such methods could be definitely prescribed, I imagine we should all be more agreeable than we are. But General Fairchild, perhaps without ever having given the matter any special thought or study, knew the art quite as perfectly as any other person I ever met. Whoever took his hand on the street; whoever met him in his home; whoever experienced the charm of meeting him in social intercourse among his near friends, did not fail to bring away the impression that he was one of the most delightful of personalities.

It is perhaps not possible to analyze very satisfactorily the secret of his personality, and yet there were certain characteristics that I think may be mentioned:

First of all, he had a remarkable frankness of manner. I do not mean by this that he kept no secrets; far from it. On the contrary, his own personal affairs, and the private affairs of his family, as well as the confidential matters intrusted to him, he kept always out of sight. He seemed to have a strong-box in his heart, in which all such matters were very strenuously kept out of sight. But in regard to matters of public interest' in regard to his own attitude on public questions, in regard to matters of general policy, his frankness was something absolutely complete. I never felt that in such matters he kept anything back. He made us all feel that we knew his whole mind and heart. We all had perfect confidence that we could talk over any matters with perfect freedom, and feel sure that he would tell us exactly how he thought and felt.

Then again he had in remarkable measure what is commonly called the "courage of his convictions." He expressed himself with the same freedom before those who were opposed to him, as before those with whom he acted. He liked a man who expressed himself with the same frankness and earnestness which he was in the habit of using, and it was for this reason that, as we all know, many of his best and most intimate friends belonged to the political party to which he was opposed. He had the same respect for a straightforward and earnest political enemy, that he had for a political friend.

This characteristic was allied with what might be called an unlimited charity for others. In this matter, however, he demanded evidence of honesty of conviction. Though in the time of the war, and ever since the war, he believed in the northern cause as earnestly as he fought, it was one of his peculiarities that when the war was over he showed on every occasion a very earnest and even warm regard for those who had honestly and

bravely fought on the other side. This was why he was always so popular in the south, and why since his death the expressions of admiration and esteem at Vicksburg, and Charleston, and elsewhere, have been so gratifying to us all.

In illustration of this characteristic, I may perhaps be pardoned for referring to an amusing account I once heard him give of his first meeting with General Hood. It occurred, if I remember aright, at Minneapolis, or St. Paul. When Fairchild registered at the hotel, he saw among the names above his, the name of the old rebel commander at Atlanta. He at once sent up his card, but Hood happened to be out. Not long after Fairchild had gone to bed, he heard a knock at the door. Getting up to open it, he confronted the Confederate general. Fairchild at once asked him in, and they entered upon their talk. How this old fighting confederate general was captured, those who knew Fairchild can easily understand. The result was, that Fairchild persuaded him to pass the night with him. Before very long, Hood was willing to take off his artificial arms and legs, and all that was not artificial got into bed with Fairchild, and these two old veterans spent the night together, most of it in talk of the events of the war. Fairchild said that he told Hood in the morning that he certainly should have killed him in the war if he could, but that now he was very glad that he did not have the chance.

Prominent among all his other characteristics, was his ever-present sense of hu nor, but this humor was absolutely free from bitterness. There never was any sting in it. It resulted in laughter and merriment, but never in any lasting regret. I was introduced to this humor, at the time I first saw him in Madison. He invited me to go over to a meeting of the Monona Lake Assembly. In the course of our wanderings together about the beautiful grounds, we met an elderly, gray-haired gentleman, to whom he introduced me. We had a merry chat together, Fairchild asking all sorts of droll questions, which ended, as we were about to part, in a rather curious manner. As we were about to come away, Fairchild nudged this old gentleman with his elbow and said: "Say, now, can you tell us where, over here, the president and I can get a drink?" My amazement was somewhat alleviated by the reply, which was simply: "General, you are a very funny man!" As soon as we separated, the general told me that my new acquaintance was the great Wisconsin apostle of prohibition and total abstinence.

It was in these ways that he impressed us. He was a true man. He had an open and a kind heart, that went out to the poor as well as to the rich. His kindly feeling was as universal as his charity and his generosity, and it was not strange that when he died the poorest who knew him mourned his death as much as anybody we met around his open grave. He had the ways of the supreme gentleman. His courtesy went out to everybody. Whether in the courts of royalty, or at his fireside, or on the field of battle, or in the streets of his beloved Madison, he had the same thoughtful

ness for others. Wherever he was, he threw wide open the doors of his existence, and welcomed us all to the great affluence of his nature. It was for this generosity, that we all feel happier and better for having known him.

Remarks by Prof. Charles Noble Gregory.

Mr. President: The late Mr. Lowell, in a letter to a friend, said, “Life would be undesirable if we had not the power of looking behind as well as before us." Now this Society answers to that strong wish and impulse of the human heart. It is organized to look "behind," and certainly our vision is never turned more fondly along that backward track than when it is turned to the life and memory of a loved and honored founder of this State and of this Society, as it is to-night. I feel deeply all that has been so well said here of the personal charm, the individual delightfulness of General Fairchild, which bound us all to him.

I think he had, all in all, the most varied life of any man I ever knew. It was full of extraordinary experiences which were as various and contrasted as they were significant and entertaining. He had known "many lands and many men." His mind, his manners, and his heart had ripened under the suns of many regions.

As a boy, he left this city with an ox team and crossed the continent to the waters of the Pacific. I have heard him tell of that memorable journey; how night after night he went out from the camp and, wrapped in his blanket, lay down in the cold wet grass by the pasturing cattle to guard them from the Indians lurking near. He told us of crossing the Rocky Mountains, where the winter before emigrants had been overtaken by the storm and the snow and had perished miserably in the drifts. His party camped one night where one of these tragedies had happened. There were the remnants of the useless shelters, the fluttering shreds of the women's dresses, and all the pitiful evidences of their struggle and their fate.

He had left Madison in March, but the ox team took longer than the locomotive, and it was now the end of autumn. In the night some of his comrades wakened, and found the snow falling softly and silently on their upturned faces. Quickly they roused the rest, yoked the tired cattle, and with blanched faces drove on down the whitening canyon with the fear of an awful death stalking behind them.

He told us of his life in the gulches and mining camps, and of those nights when the Vigilantes administered their rude and sudden justice, when every man in the camp was compelled to lay his hand on the rope, that all might be parties to the act. He told us too of his early political services in California, and how he was obliged to attend, in his shirt-sleeves, a convention to which he was a delegate, because, on the way, his mule fell over a precipice, carrying coat and pack down into the abyss below.

After six years of this wild, rough life, he came back to his old home here, and in a few years he was away again in the war of the great rebel

lion, leading our troops. He spoke often and affectionately of this army life, and told us sometimes incidents of campaigning not often spoken of, as that at night he would often look for a plowed field and spread his blanket on the loosened soil which, shaping to his body, and hardening with the frost, gave him a better bed than he could find elsewhere.

Then he would tell us of life in England, of hearing John Bright speak, or meeting Huxley at dinner, or staying at a country house with Gladstone, of the administration of justice in England, or of her civil service, which he greatly admired. Presently he would speak of Paris, of Madrid, and of the court of Spain, where he had honorably served.

He had gone through this strange and distinguished career and returned to our midst still in the prime of life, untouched by any blight of time.

General Fairchild had what comes to very few, even among the fortunate ones, a long period of unbroken, high, and honorable public service, followed by years of distinguished leisure ere the weakness of age had come to him. When Kemble bade farewell to the stage in Edinburgh, Sir Walter Scott made him say that he hoped he might enjoy

"Some space between the theater and the grave."
"That, like the Roman in the Capitol,

I may adjust my mantle ere I fall."

That felicity was granted General Fairchild. All the strife and struggle, all the strenuous contests, the trials and severe labors of his brilliant and useful career, were completed in the very prime of life, and there remained for him that golden Indian summer, spent with us here, which we all so fondly remember.

The last time that I saw him, I said: "General, I hope you are better," and he, with his never-failing courtesy, alike in sickness and in health, answered: "The better for seeing you." And so, I am sure, Mr. President, that we are all the better, the city, State and nation, and every good cause, and this valued Society, are the better for having known him and his services, and for having remembered him to-night.

REVISION OF THE CONSTITUTION.

The following resolution, offered by Charles Noble Gregory, was adopted:

Resolved, That the chair appoint a committee of seven, of which the secretary shall be a member; said committee being and they are hereby instructed to draft a thorough revision of the constitution of the Society, with a view to improving and modernizing its provisions; the committee to select their own chairman, and to report to the Society at their convenience. The chair appointed, as such committee: Messrs. Gregory, Morris, Jones, Van Slyke, Parkinson, Thwaites, and Conover.

HISTORICAL PAPERS.

Papers were then presented as follows, for the full text of which see Appendix:

Lake Mills, in the War of Secession, by Elisha W. Keyes.

The West, as a Field for Historical Study, by Frederick J. Turner, Ph. D. Available Material for the Study of the Institutional History of the Old Northwest, by Isaac S. Bradley.

The several reports and papers were ordered printed with the Proceedings of the Society, whereupon the meeting stood adjourned.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING.

A meeting of the executive committee was held at the close of the Society meeting, Vice-President Butler in the chair. The following amendment to the by-laws of the Society, was adopted:

Amend the By-Laws by adding thereto the following section:

SECTION 17. There is hereby established a separate fund to be known as the Draper Fund, the income of which, or so much of said income as may from time to time be deemed advisable by the executive committee, shall be used in indexing the Draper Collection of manuscripts, and purchasing or otherwise securing for the Society's library additional manuscripts and printed material touching upon the history of mid-Western settlement. The principal of said Draper Fund shall consist of the net proceeds of all real or personal property bequeathed to the Society by the late Lyman C. Draper, deceased; of all gifts to the Society, the givers of which may designate such fund as beneficiary; and of such sums of money as may from time to time be set apart by the executive committee for such purpose. Said principal shall be loaned by the treasurer of the Society in the same manner as, and in connection with, the Binding and Antiquarian Funds; and all unexpended balance of interest arising from such loans shall annually be added to the principal of said Draper Fund.

The following resolutions were adopted:

Resolved, That the committee on the revision of the constitution be and they are hereby instructed to draft a revision of the by-laws of the executive committee, and to report thereon to this committee, at their convenience.

Resolved, That the sum of two hundred dollars be and it is hereby appropriated from the Draper Fund, during the fiscal year ending November 30, 1897, to be expended under the direction of the secretary, in indexing