[A] A considerable part of this Introduction appeared originally as an article in The Princeton Alumni Weekly.
[B] It had been the practice of our Presidents to send their Messages to Congress and not to read them in person.
[C] The speech was made from a rostrum in the National Cemetery, on the battlefield.
[D] General Victoriano Huerta had, on Feb. 18, deposed President Madero, and had been, on the 20th, elected President by the Mexican Congress. Three days later Madero was assassinated while in the custody of the new government. An army calling themselves Constitutionalists under General Villa, defeated the Mexican Federal forces in May. On August 20, Huerta declined the proposal of the United States government that he should cease to be a candidate for the Presidency.
[E] In the Areopagitica: "I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat."
[F] Sir George Williams, 1821-1905, an English philanthropist, founder of the Young Men's Christian Association.
[G] This was at Princeton, in 1902 and 1903.
ENGLISH READINGS FOR SCHOOLS
"Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man."