12 'Che Conservative *
result from tbo conference is far less
certniu. The egotistic spirit of nations
cauuot bo BO easily exorcised. But it
should bo an admirable beginning.
Even if tbo proposition leads to a par
tial success in result it will glorify tbo
name of Nicholas among tbo greatest
potentates of the ago. But tbo surest
guarantee of success will bo that Rus
sia herself first put the doctrine into
practice.
Has Nicholas tbo iron will to match
bis beautiful aspiration and carry it out
against all kinds of baffling opposition ?
Or will splendid impulse , as in tbo case
of his grandfather and that grandfa
ther's grandfather , retreat back , beaten
in the fight , into the old traditional
lines of Muscovite ambition , recklesr
as that of a Roman Cnasar ? Time oulj
can toll.
Educational Expansion.
Dr. William T. Harris , United States
commissioner of education , read a strik
ing paper before tbo American Social
Science association at Saratoga. Its sub
ject dealt with tbo recent advances in
college and university education in this
country. Its statements are full of sig
nificance. Among other things , ho as
serts that in tbo last quarter of a cen
tury tbo records of enrollment among
the students of the higher education ,
including the high schools and advanced
academies , indicate a triple ratio rela
tive to the population as against the
preceding ratio. Three times as many
students per million of people that is
an amazing fact more notable than our
other landmarks of progress , brilliant
as these have been I It is interesting to
speculate on the causes. Two salient
ones at once suggest themselves. In the
first place , the needs of the ago have
compelled universities and colleges to
introduce many specialized courses.
Students , looking on tbo higher study
as not merely a medium of mental dis
cipline , but a direct avenue to profes
sional work , have thus been tempted to
use those agencies once devoted largely
to the grind of Latin and Greek. The
useful in study has greatly increased
clientage where broad general culture
alone would have failed in its appeal.
Secondly , tharo has been an astonish
ing increase in tbo means of the middle
classes , those neither very rich nor very
poor. Social agitators constantly assert
that the tendencies of the times make
the rich richer and the poor poorer.
This is contrary to all the sociological
testimony. Tbo vast expansion of na
tional wealth has been among those oc
cupying tbo golden mean. These two
causes alone will account for the edu
catioual increase. It is n pity that Dr.
Harris did not enter specifically into its
rationale.
An article of great interest in The
Engineer , an English technical weekly ,
entitled "American Progress In English
industry , " goes into a multiplicity of
detail showing why the manufacturers
of America are supplanting the English
on their own soil and in their own homo
markets , a fact so remarkable as to bo
worth extended comment. Among ether
things the writer says : "Such n great
deal has been heard of late about the
progress of Germany as a lival to in
dustrial England that the bitter cry of
American competition eeems to have
been overlooked. It would not be far
from the truth to say that British in
dustry is pressed harder by the Ameri
cans than by the Germans. America is
no longer the key to the Sheffield trado.
Sheffield manufacturers having intimate
relations with the United States and
who go regularly on business there sev
eral times a year are impressed by the
fact that transatlantic firms , both in
their methods of working and in the
way in which the artisans do their
work , are far ahead of this country. At
this moment the American is sending
over in the regular way of business
heavy consignments of steel. The time
will come when costlier qualities will
bo imported in quantity to meet our de
mands. " This striking admission em
phasizes what the students of industrial
science have long known. The mechan
ical ingenuity which has characterized
American industry has tended greatly
to offset higher cost of labor and enable
us to meet foreign competition in many
lines on its own ground. There have
been relatively few great fundamental
inventions and discoveries made in the
United States , but those made abroad
have been so modified and improved in
practice as to have revolutionized their
worth.
Bronze Casting.
The art of bronze work is one of the
oldest in tbo world , magnificent speci
mens of the sculptor's work in this
metal having been found on the sites of
buried Assyrian cities and in the Egyp
tian tombs. Some of these examples of
the world's pristine art date back not less
than 8,500 years before the Christian
era. The alloy of copper and tin , known
as bronze , was one of the first metals to
bo worked on account of its greater
fusibility , the mixture of the two met
als offering increased facility also in
hardening and tempering. Tbo perfec
tion of the process of bronze work as
shown by the ancients , especially by
the Assyrians and the Greelw , who used
it so largely for their statuary , cannot
bo surpassed by modern times. It was
one of the earliest arts , too , to be re
vived during the middle ages , and it
was practiced steadily during what is
known as the dark period. But it was
not till the renaissance that this art ,
like the other fine arts , flowered into
consummate beauty. Such artists as
Bouveuuto Cellini and Ghiberti illus
trated it with their most famous efforts ,
and themselves took part in the details
of the work as well as inpldcd the mod
els. This attention indeed has not boon
uncommon with all the greatest artists
in bronze. Though Paris and Munich
are now the best known centers of tbo
bronze founders art Now York has of
late years rivaled the most splendid and
difficult products of this sort of art in
dustry. Wo have given to the world a
line of gifted sculptors , and they have
not needed to leave this country of late
years to find the most skillful means of
reproducing their work in bronze. In
deed one bronze foundry in New York
has lately executed a chef d'oouvre ,
which there is scarcely a concern in the
world sufficiently venturesome to un
dertake. This great feat was the cast
ing of an immense statue , that of the
nature god Pan , which is to bo erected
in Central park , in one mold , the whole
amount of metal poured having been
four tons. The danger of cracks and
flaws in casting , involving great loss ,
is imminent. To minimize this most
founders cast their work in sections ,
there being sometimes eovoral hundred
piece molds in a single statuo. The
castings are fitted together to make the
perfect figure afterward. Many will re
member the "Lay of the Boll , " by
Schiller , how he tells us in glowing
verse the anxieties of the bronze found
er as he watches each stage of his diffi
cult and beautiful process. In achieving
this triumph of making such an im
mense figure in a single piece the
American bronze workers have attained
another triumph of art industry worthy
of record.
The theory of evolution which is as
sociated with the name of Darwin , but
which is really almost as much under
a debt to a number of ether distinguish
ed scientists , from Lamarck to Haeckel ,
has received from the latter scientist a
very striking attestation. The great
difficulty has always been in the chain
of fossil proofs which would establish
the doctrine by the logic of facts. The
difficulty of securing these is of course
evident , and their lack has been an al
most fatal bar to the complete domi
nance of the theory. Scientific men
themselves have not been distressed
over these breaks in the fullness of tes
timony , but the person of ordinary in
telligence , less acute in his methods of
reasoning , might well incline to halt.
Professor Haeckel , the most eminent
living exponent 6f the evolution theory ,
declared the other day that recent dis
coveries in Borneo , Madagascar and
Australia had now all but completed
the chain of proof. This was at the
meeting of the Cambridge congress of
zoology , where his paper was the most
striking feature of the proceedings The
great German scientist assures the world
that the proofs are now irrefutable. The
time he gives for the development of
man from the lowest form of life is a
thousand million of years , though Lord
Kelvin and others doubted whether the
eceno of lifo on this earth could be more