The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-12-28
A GLOWING EULOGY.
The Lesson Of Kate Fields Life Tolc
hN Mr. II Ic htnn

The Lesson of Kate Fields Life Told
by Mr.. Highton.
The great lesson of Kate Fields life and
death is her intense patriotism. which
now, above all other periods, should COM
mand universal respect. She was an
American to the core-broad, tolerant,
without fanaticism or bigotry of any kind
and devoted to human freedom on our
constitutional basis. Like General Grant,
she had travelled widely and had met the
most distinguished thinkers and states
men of Europe; but, like him, she re-
turned to her OWE land even more deeply
imbued than before with the spirit of our
institutions, in their happy combination
of Individual sovereignty, State autonomy
and National unity. The last aspirations
OF her soul, as expressed orally and in the
solemnities of her will, were that her
ashes should mingle with her native soil
and that her individuality should be
respected by the flag.
A writer of unusual power, she never
unsexed herself, but, dealing with impor-
tant questions for fully quarter of GEN.
fury, she discussed them as an American
woman, intellectual cultivated, refined
and, under every condition, true to Ma
tional ideals. She was familiar with the
best literature of the world and conveyed
the loftiest thoughts and the purest senti-
ments of the ages in language so clear and
so telling that many of her phrases have
become part of that popular education of
which she was so enthusiastic cham
pion.
Women of her type and character
trained and armed the heroes of our reyo-
lutionary war. In the darkest years of
the Republic such women consecrated
their children to their American concep-
tons of freedom and of independence
and though toward the closing years of a
century patriotic education has dwindled
in its extent and earnestness, that type of
American woman is not extinct, but, in
any National emergency that may arise,
will be revived and Teinvigorated by the
example and by the life OF Kate Field.
To this State her services were at once
valuable and unique. She spread the
story of our achievements and OF our re-
sources all over the Union. With prac-
tical sagaoity that shaned many of our
citizens she anticipated and preuicted the
mighty future OF the Pacific. She boldly
repudiated all narrow or transcendentaI
views, which thwarted our progress and
injured our local industries ana she bore
her testimony to our capacity for indus
trial, moral and intellectual development
by pervading the most definite facts with
the blended power of philosophy and of
patriotism.
1t is fitting, therefore. that the obsequies
of this noble and gifted woman should
have been marked by National recogni-
ton and peculiarly appropriate that they
should have been celebrated in the State
OF California, to which much of her best
work during her later years was conse-
Grated. When the unanimity and fervor
with which the last honors to her memory
have been paid is correctly realized it
will prove that not only here but through
out the Union, not only throughout the
Union but throughout the world she,
"being dead, yet speaketh.'
HENRY E. HIGHToN.