marking system. He also carefully analyzes the Princeton preceptorial system, the new educational methods at the Carnegie Technical Schools at Pittsburgh, Pa., the report of the committee of the faculty as to student conditions at Harvard, and many other interesting aspects of the student problem that have never been before so sympathetically and clearly examined from the student's standpoint.

At Harvard, only five per cent. of a student's whole year is spent in the lecture or recitation room. and therefore ninety-five per cent. away from the direct influence of his professors. Mr. Birdseye demonstrates that it is this time outside of the classroom which dominates the other five per cent. and hence the student's course at college; that it is this outside life which today we are neglecting, and that from this neglect largely comes the existing dissatisfaction with our college courses. His discussion of the student's home life, as distinguished from the college community life, is entirely novel and unlocks many mysteries as to failures in college, appealing most directly to those parents who have disregarded this four-year period of their son's home life. He treats this college home life not only with the analytical mind of the trained lawyer, but also with the sympathy of the parent who has sent his own children to college.

Mr. Birdseye shows from the history of the earlier colleges their great power in training the mental and moral character of the individual student, and how this training is now lacking in our huge institutions. He discusses present college and business conditions, the effect of the Greek-letter fraternities upon the college home life of the students, and offers many suggestions drawn from his own investigations for restoring a proper training of the individual student. The discussion of the present evils of college life is complete and convincing, and evidently made by one who knows his subject thoroughly from the student's standpoint, and knows more than he tells. The introduction is by Dr. Elmer Ells

worth Brown, United States Commissioner of Education, and the book has received the warm approval of many other leading educators as the most important contribution made to the discussion of the constantly recurring question, What is the matter with our colleges? In this book the true meaning of the fraternities has been worked out, and their duties and responsibilities to their members and the colleges have been set forth with startling clearness. Mr. Birdseye shows how flogging flourished for one hundred and twenty years at Harvard, and at Yale for over fifty; and how fagging was officially recognized at both of these institutions until a century ago. Indeed, the book abounds with anecdote and illustration. It will prove of absorbing interest and stimulus to graduate and undergraduate, to parents and faculty, to high school teachers and students,

and to all who are in doubt as to the fraternities in our college or high school.

Elihu Root, Secretary of State, in an address before Yale students, emphasized the growing menSecretary Root ace of socialism to Addresses Yale Students. the nation. To counteract this

peril he urged constant vigilance in fostering patriotism and loyalty. Secretary Root warned his hearers that it was a mistake to assume that the republic will endure for the future. He said plainly that the people themselves may decide to change their form of government.

"We are accustomed to flatter ourselves," said Secretary Root, "that the cessful. It has, indeed, carried the demgreat American experiment has been suconstration of the popular capacity of the people to rule themselves far beyond the point which originally seemed possible to the enemies of popular government.

"Nevertheless, we must not delude ourselves with the idea that the American experiment of government has ended or that our task is accomplished. Our political system has proved successful under simple conditions. It still remains to be

seen how it will stand the strain of the vast complication of the life upon which we now are entering. It remains to be seen whether the democracy will be willing to continue the present methods of government, or whether, with their continually increasing realization of their own power, the people will change the old methods of government along such lines as foreshadowed by the proposals for an initiative and referendum-proposals that would substitute a direct democratic action for representative government, as representative government was substituted for absolute monarchical control.

"Modern democracy simply has ingrafted upon the old social system the assertion of the right to equal individual opportunity, so that no barrier of birth, caste, or privilege shall stand between any man and whatever career his ability, industry, and courage entitle him to achieve. The socialists, in no negligible numbers, demand a reorganization of society upon entirely different principles. Limitations upon the right of private property are widely favored. Limitations upon individual opportunity are still more widely enforced among all that part of the wage workers who believe in putting a limit upon the amount of work which each workman shall be permitted to do.

"After many centuries of struggle for the right of equality there is some reason to think that mankind now is entering upon a struggle for the right of inequality. It remains to be seen how democracy will work under those new conditions. The complication of an interdependent life will put the power of doing incalculable harm into the hands. of so many men and combinations of men of different occupations that a realization. of the common interest is absolutely essential to the working of the vast machine. The mere forcible enforcement of law is inadequate. It is not the fear of the policeman or the sheriff that keeps the peace in our many cities. It is the self-control of the millions of inhabitants."

in the methods of instruction of intending ministers made necessary by modern conditions of life. One of the trustees, the president of the Baldwin Locomotive works, was mentioned as the donor of a completely furnished house in the city mission district of Philadelphia to be used as a sort of laboratory by the students of the seminary. Opportunity will be afforded through it of practical experience in religious work in a large city. To such actual service in what the scientist might call laboratory or field work, groups of students are to be regularly assigned.

There is frequent complaint that the candidates for the ministry are few in number. Perhaps one reason for this condition is the amount of preparation absolutely essential to success. The olden day notion of the sufficiency of "a call" is gone. The man who looks hopefully toward a career in the ministry is obliged to familiarize himself with a wide range of knowledge. The conventional requirements of courses in church history, pastoral theology, homiletics, and interpretation of the Old and New Testaments make but a small part of the equipment. Even more than ever forcefulness in public speaking is recognized as essential. But beyond this it is absolutely necessary that there be knowledge of the actual conditions of life which the minister must meet. Problems of urban

life, questions of labor and capital, subjects connected with dependents, defectives, and delinquents, and many other topics of an economic and sociological nature must be studied and, to some degree, mastered.

Without much advertising of the fact there has been a good deal of laboratory and field work undertaken in recent years. Large city churches have had their missions which often have been in charge of ministerial students. They have had provision for assistance to their

pastors, this assistance being given by the same class of individuals, an assistance entirely distinct from practice preaching.

The gift to Princeton, therefore, simply recognizes what has been shown to be necessary and provides better machinery for accomplishing it. That a practical business man should furnish the equipment is interesting. Such a person well understands the value of the laboratory to the chemist or physicist. What experimentation is to the locomotive builder it is likewise to the one who hopes to improve humanity. The increased recognition of this fact during recent years is one of the notable things in the domain of theological education.

* * *

The call for financial aid has been heard this year from both the great historic English universities.

In

Appeal for Aid from English Universities. February the Duke of Devonshire as chancellor of Cambridge University stood up and boldly declared that using the utmost economy his university could judiciously spend seven millions and a half dollars on immediate needs. This month Lord Curzon, the chancellor of Oxford, holds out his hat for the modest sum of a million and a quarter. President Eliot has always been reminding us that it is the very greatness of a great university that keeps it poor. The higher its reputation stands, the wider its field of usefulness, the greater are the demands upon it from those flocking to it from an ever-increasing geographical area. One such cause of Oxford's distress will occur to everyone in the Cecil Rhodes scholarships. There from a single source are launched upon the ancient seat of learning nearly two hundred students from all ends of the earth in the British Empire, and from the United States and Germany as well. Apparently the strain from this loading that must be felt by the old university did not occur to Mr. Rhodes; his benefaction was given to the students themselves. Lord Curzon, like the able politician that he is, touches the chord of imperialism in his appeal.

"Among modern languages English should stand first at an English university," he says. "It is the language of the empire, and Oxford, under the impulse given by the advent of the Rhodes scholars, may fairly be expected to take a leading part in the supply of teachers of our own language and literature to the younger universities, to colleges and to schools all over the world." It seems that the English department like that of foreign languages and literature is sadly overworked and an increased staff of teachers must be provided.

But this is not the whole nor the worst. The Bodleian Library cannot afford to print a complete catalogue, and is so cramped for room and short of personnel that it cannot grow and cannot be administered with advantage and comfort to the readers. Then there is no engineering or even an electrical department at Oxford, and it cannot remain longer under the reproach, in this age of the world, of being the only university with no equipment for turning out engineers. Such a lack will never do for a university of the empire, whose mission is to break the way in distant fastnesses. There is a demand, too, for scientific courses in agriculture and for more such in hygiene. Here is ample vindication for the modern American college idea after all. We shall not be reproached after this with devoting the amount of attention we do in our college courses to practical studies, the so-called "breadand-butter courses" of applied science and engineering-now that even those ancient strongholds of classical learning find they do not meet the requirements of the times without them. Another American allusion one finds constantly on the lips of those who are begging for the ancient British universities. This is to the American millionaires; the million and a quarter dollars asked for by Oxford, they say, is a mere bagatelle on the scale on which university benefactions are made in the United States. It comes out that Mr. Gladstone on returning in his old age as a student to Oxford did some angling in golden streams and took it much to heart that he failed to land

his millionaire. It seems that in the United Kingdom the millionaires seldom turn their thoughts to Oxford and Cambridge. The seven millions and a half of dollars called for by the latter university seems a huge sum; but after all it is only

about as much as is regularly expended in England on a single battleship. The admonition to "think imperially" should extend to the imperial uses and influences of the ancient universities of Cambridge and Oxford.

The latest American holder of a Cecil Rhodes scholarship to tell what he sees at Oxford through American student spectables is Stanley Royal Ashby. He sums up his impressions of the Oxford spirit thus:

"To destroy illusions, to show that idols are made of clay and to demonstrate that all authorities are but erring human creatures, this seems to be a characteristic of the Oxonian's mind." All accounts have agreed that the American Rhodes scholars have been well received at Oxford. Mr. Ashby Mr. Ashby says that no one seriously thought the Americans would be of the cowboy order and would "tote pistols" or "raise warwhoops in the squads and lasso the gargoyles in the chapels," but he admits that some of the dons were disposed to shake their heads dubiously "over receiving so many American students into their midst."

Mr. Ashby was pleased at the hospitality of the upper classmen in giving breakfasts to the youngsters, but he says the average American doesn't quite understand the depth of Oxford etiquette for some time. On this point he says:

"One of the features of college etiquette to which I refer is a custom which enjoins that a freshman must not speak to a man of another year in the street unless he is first addressed by this exalted individual, who usually forgets to notice him even after entertaining him at breakfast."

Of the other restrictions of conduct of Oxford Mr. Ashby says:

"It is not privation to be forbidden to play marbles or shoot arrows in the high street, nor is it very irksome to wear

cap and gown on the prescribed occa

sions.

"But to men who have been accustomed to live where they chose during their college days elsewhere it is a decidedly novel experience, to put it mildly, to be required to leave college before 9 p. m., if at all during the evening; to be required to pay a shilling for each out of college guest departing after II, as is the rule in some colleges, and to be liable to all sorts of dire penalties if they stay out five minutes after the clock has struck 12."

All the American Rhodes scholars who have written for print have had much to say about the athletic spirit at Oxford. This is natural, for many of the Americans have been noted athletes in college here. here. One of these was Schutt, the champion cross-country runner of Cornell.

The requirements for the selection of these students are that they must excel in three-tenths of their work for scholarship and that for the other seven-tenths they must excel in athletics, courage, high moral character and aptitude for public affairs. Mr. Ashby speaks of Oxford as the home of healthy sport, and the climate, because of the number of outdoor days, as peculiarly conducive to the English love of athletics, He compares the American college man's "insane desire to win" with the Englishman's love of contests for the sake of the game, and adds that at Oxford "it is considered unsportsmanlike and bad form to be too eager to win."

As to scholarship, Mr. Ashby says the Americans have found it difficult to adjust themselves to the system that re

quires work, after having had experience with the American plan of taking optional studies. On this point he says:

"A man who wished to read for honors in English literature, from the purely literary point of view, found that he must spend half of his time turning over the dry bones of English philology. Some men, too, who have had no ambitions in a classical or legal way, have looked upon the first public examination in the classics and the preliminary examination in law, one or the other of which must be passed before entering a final school, as a somewhat unnecessary obstacle. The enforced examination in Holy Scripture has been viewed in the same light."

Mr. Ashby declares that there has not been a high idea of American scholarship at Oxford, largely because American college men do not receive the severe training in classics that English boys get, the Americans going in for history, modern languages, literature, natural science and economics in preference to Latin and Greek. Of the examination system Mr. Ashby speaks in high terms. He says Oxford "has reduced examining to a science" and adds:

"Instead of leaving the preparation of questions in the hands of the lecturers themselves, as a mere incidental duty among many others, Oxford entrusts this work to experts, who make it their special concern to prepare sets of questions that are as judiciously chosen as possible. The result is that, contrary to what is usually the case elsewhere, these examinations are truly a test of the student's knowledge. There are enough general questions to insure that no well prepared student shall be in danger of failing and enough questions of minute detail to cause the undoing of the idler."

Mr.

To the so-colled tutorial system of instruction in English universities Ashby has become a convert, and he says that its recent adoption by Princeton shows that its worth is being appreciated here. He says:

"The strong points of the method can very easily be seen. The tutor's feeling of responsibility for the men committed to his care, his interest in each one of them, his more intimate knowledge of their characters, all combine to give effectiveness to his labors, while the student should find the mere personal association with his tutor a stimulus, or even, in the case of a tutor of great personality, an inspiration.

"The tutor, too, gives his pupil a steadying hand to guide him through the chaos of conflicting authority. How often, when we adduced certain authorities for our statements, have we heard our tutor make such remarks as 'Oh, bother Mr. X's history of England,' or 'I have the greatest, the very greatest respect for Mr. Y., you understand,

but- -' or 'Mr. Z's book is out of date -oh, hopelessly out of date,' etc.

"Then when he has made us distrust one authority after another, he shows us how to derive good from all. Really, the tutor's comments upon books and lectures are almost as valuable as the books and lectures themselves."

The "marked critical attitude of Oxford" is what has impressed Mr. Ashby in its relationship to scholarship. He says there is an entire absence of pedantry and speaks of the learned men:

"Some of the most intellectual men of Oxford, far from making any parade of learning, are so unassuming that you would give them credit for only the most mediocre ability until better acquaintance reveals them to you. Only the other day a friend was relating to me how he had disgraced himself by mistaking a learned

don for a freshman.

"Again, anything like sentimental enthusiasm is chilled by its reception. The man who goes into raptures over things hardly exists here at all, and if he did he would probably be regarded with a quiet, amused kind of tolerance that would bring him downward with a thud."