the Conservative. 13
Germany n little higher in grade , tiir
effect of which on the growth of commerce
merco nucl industry has been amazing
Tlieso are technical schools , dealing , for
example , with industrial chemistry , tcs
tile manufacturing , metallurgy , etc.
They are for the most part free , and
they have supplied Germany with an
army of able uud skillful operatives ,
who oftentimes rise to the very top of
the ladder. These schools have been of
priceless value to the industry of the
country. They could bo easily and ad
vantageously copied in America.
The French poet , Berauger , wailed
that our century is a brutal thinker. In
the same sense all history is a brutal
thinker. The collective is always piti
less to the individual. Out of this grows
the hackneyed truth that corporations
have no souls.
Most men , and even women , have a
flavor of the stage player in thorn in
this , that they prefer oven to have
things said about them a little malicious
than to be absolutely unnoticed.
The highest form of esteem a woman
can give a man is to ask his friendship ,
the most significant proof of her indif
ference is to offer her own.
As an example of the perfection to
which some manufacturers are made to
imitate others artificial silk may bo
cited. A writer in La Nature says that
experts themselves are sometimes deceived
ceived in a first glance. The artificial
product made of wood fiber fully equals
the other in texture and brilliancy and
is simply less strong. It is made espr
cially to obviate this as a facing on a
warp of inferior natural silk , a o on a
cotton warp. The result is a lustrous
and showy effect at less than half the
cost of genuine silk , and the product i ?
available for a great variety of dros- ,
goods and fancy materials. The new
material takes the most rich and deli
cate dyes by the use of special processes
It promises to supersede natural silk for
many uses , as much as wood pulp has
rags in paper making.
The erstwhile Mary Victoria Loiter
of Chicago is now Countess Curzon of
Kedlestou , and the daughter of the man
who once eold tape and ribbons wil
shortly be the vice queen at whoso feet
will bow 250,000,000 of subjects ii
whose history the most pictur&quo tra
ditions of 8,000 years of Asiatic history
are still a warning force.
Without pains there would bo no
pleasures. The soldiers who have go
home again realize what the condensed
delight of a "good square meal" is ,
many of them for the first time.
Big men often cease to bo big when
people rise from ( heir knees before
them.
College Athletics.
The pursuit of athleticism as a tacit
feature of the college curriculum has
often been charged against the Ameri
can universities. There is a shadow of
truth in this. The authorities of learned
ustitutions are very human and are
compelled sometimes to regard things
from the business standpoint. The pros-
polity of a university depends in some do-
; reo on the success with which it caters
to public interest. With the prevailing
passion for athletic games and exercises
which the last quarter century has de
veloped in the United States to such a
degree , it is not unnatural that the
youth of the land should bo strongly at
tracted toward those universities which
have achieved the greatest honors in
this direction. It is also quito intelligi
ble that the concession to this taste on
the part of governing faculties should
sometimes lead them to stretch a point
in attracting and retaining the leading
exponents of athletic skill who come up
from the preparatory schools. The great
universities , like Yale , Harvard , Colum
bia , the University of Chicago , Cornell
university , the University of California ,
etc. , do not feel the need of looking aft
er their intellectual reputations. "Good
wine needs no bush. " The larger danger
to the country it ) that the smaller col
leges will bo injured by being drawn in
the same train. The latter suffer in
greater degree by their zeal in following
their models. What the one class of in
situtions can stand without serious de
terioration from their main object is
likely to affect seriously the other class.
It is therefore a profitable sign when wo
perceive a great university disposed to
draw the line sharply. Yale has recent
ly dropped two of its most famous ath
letes on account of deficiency in their
studies , unwillingly perhaps , but in
obedience to a correct theory. If other
institutions will follow the example , it
will go far to correct the evil of excessive
ivo athleticism. "The healthy mind in
the healthy body" is a nobler rule ,
but not the healthy body at the expense
of the healthy mind.
A Southern Humorist.
The recent death of Richard Malcolm
Johnston , the southern novelist , is a loss
to American literature , though most
readers do not perhaps fully recognize
his unique and delightful genius. Ii
his creation of types of character not
loss faithful to local color and oharac
toristio than they are vitalized with
vivid flesh and blood , no American fie-
tionist is his superior. The richness of
Mr. Johnston's humor seems to exude
from every page , and even his tragedy
suggests it none the less forcibly per
h ; p.s from the fact that true humor and
pathos Ho close to the same sources
Yet his tragedy is sometimes of the
grimmest typo , too , though it never
fails to have that genuine quality whicl
comes from the collision of character
and passion as in human actuality. I
never ians to the melodramatic typo of
sensational incident , a clover manipu
lation of which is the trick of so many
successful caterers to the fiction taste.
But it is as a humorist that his fame
will resolve itself into a permanent
'act. No southern and but few northern
writers have equaled him in the virile
and striking types which crowd the
n'cture gallery of his novels. Individual ,
oven outlandish as these may be , they
never impress the imagination as gro
tesque or abnormal. The salienoy and
vigor of human nature in them and in
their atmosphere make us realize the
living touch as in a Dickens creation.
The author's "Dukosborough Tales , "
"Old Man Laystou , " "The Two Gay
Tourists" and "Mr. Absolom Billing-
sha and Other Georgia Folks , " with
certain similar masterpieces of work ,
will survive as long as anything in
American literature. His reputation
will probably grow more rapidly after
death than it did before , as is so often
the case with men of the rarest intel
lectual gift.
That was a beautiful and touching
incident which recently occurred in
Westminster abbey , London. A young
lady who avowed herself a descendant
of 'Benedict Arnold laid a fragrant trib
ute of roses on the tomb of Major Andre
in the great minster. On a card was in
scribed her detestation of the traitor
whose name she bore. Another descend
ant of Benedict Arnold living in a west
ern city not many years ago wrote a
ponderous volume to prove that General
Arnold was a very decent sort of a pa
triot , and that his act was prompted by
the ingratitude of America for his un
paralleled services.
The equipment of the freight cars of
the country with the automatic airbrake
is proceeding rapidly It was through
the interstate commerce commission
that congress passed the bill enforcing
this on the railway corporations. The
soulless indifference of railroads to this
life saving reform in car equipment has
for many years made the life of a freight
brakeman as dangerous as that of a sol
dier in war Running over the tops of
icy cars in the blackness of a winter
night to apply hand brakes has slain and
maimed its thousands No practical
measure was ever more needed.
It has been said that in most men
there is a dead poet whom the man sur
vives. Apropos of some of our modern
bards , there are dead poets in them
whom the men survive. They are so
wrapped up in purely technical conceit
that they have lost all grip on the hu
man heart of things.
> tf * '
lu the complicated legal machinery
of today , so ponderous that it often
threatens to break by its own weight ,
many laws are so framed that to inter
pret them is to corrupt them
