THE COURIER.
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than thirty persons. There were 131
carpenters, 32 contractors, 49 cooks,
45 farmers, 417 laborers and 32 stu
dents. The large number of cooks
can be explained by the choleric tem
per of all cooks caused by overheating
their blood. They get into rows and
are frequently arrested while chas
ing objects of their displeasure with
the carving knife. The forty-flve
farmers were agriculturists, unused
to the glittering temptations of a
large city, and in the habit of being
watched by their folks. Arrived in
Lincoln with the price of a wagon
load of corn in their pockets they in
variably begin to break the decalogue.
Some of them are arrested before they
get to murder. The thirty-two stu
dents were arrested on the general
charge of being disorderly. Two
hundred and thirty-eight persons
were furnished with lodging, G422
prisoners were fed, 1131 persons were
charged with offenses in the police
court, 574 were convicted, 424 were
dismissed, 107 acquitted, 1G held for
trial in the district court, 20 were
continued.
The cost of maintaining the police
department: Police judge's salary
31,500. Salaries policemen 811,878.34.
Special police $390.68. Miscellaneous
expenses $764.02. Amount paid for
prisoners' board $642.20. Total
315,17524.
Foreign Students at the University
If the Nebraska legislature were
asked to appropriate $20,000 or more
every two years to educate the sods
and daughters of Iowa, Illinois, Dako
ta, Montana etc, the legislature would
conclude that the regents and chan
cellor were mad. Yet the state is ed
ucating about five-hundred students
whose parents do not reside in the
state nor pay taxes for the support of
its institutions. At the Wesleyau
university near Lincoln tuition is
fifty dollars per annum. The state
university has a larger teaching force,
more expensive apparatus, a larger
library etc. It is fair to conclude
that the instruction there is, at least,
as competent and as sound as that of
fered at Wesleyan. If the tive-hundred
foreign students were charged fifty
dollars a year tuition fees the 825,000
would furnish a needed addition to
the income of ths university. The
patrons of church academies in the
state are also Nebraska taxpayers.
They help support the university and
-send their own children to the church
schools, thus paying for their educa
tion twice over. The expenses of the
smaller colleges would be reduced by
a larger attendance. But by offering
foreign students an absolutely free
education, the attendance at the
church schools is reduced. The state
has the power but no right to com
pete with the citizens who support
the state. The attempt to increase
the attendance at the university, by
admitting students from outside the
state to the university, free of charge
is an injustice to Nebraska taxpayers.
The Educational Problem.
Superintendent Greener of the pub
lic schools of Kansas-City is unique
among city superintendents. He is
not trying to induce the school-boards
to introduce new subjects so that the
imposed-upon little school-children
will have to include one more study
in their huge, burdensome, compli
cated curricula. Superintendent
Greener pled for fewer and simpler
subjects that should be more thor.
oughly taught. "I believe," said he,
"that in the past few years we have
imported so many things into our
schools, that children do not have
time to think. I would have my boy
go through the grade schools and be
able to use the English language well,
to know the meaning of words, to be
able to read the newspapers and mag
azines intelligently, to know some
thing of the history of the country,
and to understand something of its
relations to other countries. I would
rather have him know thia much,
than to have him go through the en
tire schools and get a smattering of
everything that is taught. I do not
know of a single man who ever be
came intelligently great who did not
build in the common branches."
The average child leaves school at
tne age of fifteen with a smattering
of twenty or thirty subjects among
which is a vague knowledge of the
structure of the English language.
There is an occasional intelligent
youth whose reading outside of school
has given him a view of the world
and of literature. Be has not confined
himself to getting high marks, and
the all-round intelligent boy or girl
is not often found at the bead of the
class. Their genius is of too catholic
a quality to be bound by apportioned
tasks. They read the daily papers,
they listen to the conversation of
men. Before they enter the world of
labor and wage they are in step with
it, they know the manual, not perfect
ly, but well enough to take them very
soon out of the awkward squad. This
is the kind of boy that incited the
warning to teachers about the prob
able career of the dull boy who is not
really dull, but unrestrainedly given
to thinking his own thoughts and se
lecting his own reading. Seeing that
these stubborn onesare unfortunately
too rare the public school system
should be revised so that it may more
frequently graduate a boy like the
one described by Superintendent
Greener. The food which the first
grade teachers begin to stuff into the
little ones whose forms so infantile
have not begun to lose their brownie
outlines, is natural and simple, but
the curriculum rapidly, too rapidly,
increases in complexity, until the
eighth graders are studying so many
things, to prepare them for a univer
sity course which not one per cent of
them will ever take, that, of. course,
they have neither time nor brain
room for a thorough understanding
.of English, the one indispensable,
every-day necessary subject.
A Great Orator.
Oratory is not what it used to be.
The style, and more than all, the
matter of great speeches has changed.
Speakers make strong and lasting
effects now-a-daysby talking sense,
by fitting words to the occasion, by an
inspired tact. The speeches of Pat
rick Henry, of Webster, of Henry
Clay would not tit if tried on a mod
ern audience. Structurally, the sen
tences are too long, they are burdened
with classical analogies and figures,
with poetic allusions, with the flow
ers of speech. The modern speaker
does not employ a prologue, but at
once and without apology, introduces
an idea. In listening to what he has
to say a modern audience does not
think of the words. Of all the inter
esting things in the world an idea
evolved by. a man of action is the
most interesting. The man who has
something to say can always say it
well. Grant's style" of telling the
story of his life was so simple and so
perfect that only professionals, who
have labored long to obtain a limpid
style recognize that there is any art
in General Grant's wonderful tech
nique. In the last campaign two men were
asking the voters of this country to
elect them to the presidency. One
was a man of forty, a magnetic speak.
er, whose career was only remarkable
for the speeches be bad made and for
one speech iu particular before the
democratic national convention of
1896, when he set the hearts of its del
egates on fire by a speech which took
advantage of the feeling against cap
ital and assumed that the republican
party was the oppressor of the poor
etc. The famous crown of thorns
and cross of gold speech was sufficient
to nominate Mr. Bryan twice for the
presidency. Mr. Bryan as a speaker
has a wider, more unanimously con
ceded reputation tban any other man.
President McKinley is a plain man,
like Mark Antony. He has only a
few friendly sensible words to say to
the American people. The people be
speaks to listen to him and the papers
next morning contain his addresses.
1 hope that all Americans read them.
They are matchless specimens of the
best modern oratory.
With limitless tact and truth, with
instant comprehension of their real
friendship for a president whom they
did not vote for President McKinley
spoke last Friday to the people of
New Orleans. The governor of Lou
isiana in introducing President Mc
Kinley recognized the differences of
opinion that still divide the south
from the north. The President's re
ply was an assembling of interests
and sentiments that unite the two
parts of the United States. After he
had finished it was difficult to find an
essential principle that the north and
the south were divided upon. He
spoke to people who did not vote for
him, who but recently had endeavored
to make two countries out of one. A
less skillful speaker, a less earnest
patriot might have blundered. Thus
McKinley on our united interests:
"Lwas wondering while the govern
or was talking what were our differ
ences. My eyes turned toward Judge
"Blanchard, and I recalled ' that we
did not differ about river and harbor
improvements and that we were in
favor of every just and reasonable ex
tension for the improvement of the
commerce of the Mississippi "river."
When I heard the governor tell what
I knew so well and had occasion so
many times to feel, how the people of
Louisiana rallied around the stars
and stripes and were earnestly urging
for an opportunity to go to Cuba to
fight the battles of an oppressed peo
ple, I could not but think that there
was no difference between us in the
war with Spain.
"And then I remembered it is only
a memory how the citizens of Lou
isiana gathered about the table of the
ways and means committee, when I
had the distinguished honor of pre
siding over that committee, assuring
me that they must have protection
upon sugar and rice.
"And then I reflected that there
was no difference between us about
protection. Certainly none upon the
question of sugar. Then when I re
member that this banquet'is 'held to
night in the city of New Orleans and
recall that it was your territory that
has expanded into more states than
any other territory that ever came to
the United States, it did seem to me
that possibly we were not greatly in
disagreement on the subject of expan
sion. .'Commerce is a great diplomat.
Fair dealing makes fast friends. Com
merce, like a circulating library,
carries enlightenment wherever it
goes. And then I remember that we
are all for.the open door in China,
that we may send the products of our
cotton fields, made up into cotton
goods, to the millions in the orient.
"Am I mistaken when I say that
upon another subject we are in agree
ment? We are for good money and
plenty of it. So when I remember
what had been told me just before
leaving Washington, that I must be
careful to speak of nothing about
which there would be differences, and
my friends said: You will be very
much limited in your field of discus
sion;' when I come to reflect I see
what a wide, broad field it is, and to
discuss only those things about which
we are In accord, would take more of
my time than I could claim.
"History can not omit New Orleans
from its pages. Its age insures for it
reverence and affection and its past
will always engage our interest and
admiration. It has the romance of
antiquity, the quaintnessof ancient
days, combined with a spirit of tire
less energy which makes it one of the
most progressive of our modern marts
of commerce. Its heroic associations
have secured for it an enduring place
in the annals of the American repub
lic. It bas not always been under the
same form of government and the
same sovereignty. The map of more
tban one nation has traced it within
its boundaries, and in more than one
language its laws have been adminis
tered within a period of little more
tban a century. Jefferson appreciated
more than any other public man the
commercial and strategic importance
of the city of New Orleans, and by the
treaty which he negotiated it was an
nexed to the United States. The
standards of Spain and France were
displaced by the stars and stripes.
"The flag which Jefferson raised
over the city Jackson successfully de
fended with the brave volunteers of
Tennessee, Louisiana and Mississippi,
making illustrious in American his
tory the 8th of January, the day on
which was fought the battle of New
Orleans.
"If there are two names more to be
revered than any others by this great
city they are Jefferson and Jackson.
Precious, however, as tbey are in
your hearts and history, they do not
belong to you alone. The whole na
tion claims them and renders great
f ul homage for their priceless services
to eountry and to mankind. They be
long to civilization and to the ages.
What a history they have made. To
have been the author of the declar
ation of independence was honor
enough for any life. They have made
the treaty with France, adding to the
United States a territory greater than
the original thirteen states and out
of which have been carved six entire
states and parts of six others, resting
forever upon the principles of that
mortal instrument crowned a single
life with a record of achievement with
few if any parallels in human history.
"Jackson's war record, the most
brilliant page of which was written
here, made him a hero for all time at
every fireside in the land, while his
declaration in 1832, that the laws of
the United States must be respected
and obeyed, that we would execute
them at any cost, that the federal
union must be preserved,;are senti
ments today enshrined in every Amer
ican heart and sustained and upheld
by a united people, by forty-five indi
vidual, indestructible states of an in
destructible union.
"Both of them will live in their
deeds -which are imperishable. To
have been associated with these great
names, as you have been, gives you a
most honored place in the annals of
the world.
"Gentlemen, it has given me un
bounded pleasure to greet and meet
you here in the city of New Orleans,
and may I not say in conclusion that
it will be my effort as president, as
the representative of the people of
all the states, not of one section, not
of the north or the south, but of the
whole United States, to do whatever I
can to sustain the honor and promote
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