Mr. Thomas W. Dyer, who for more. than thirty years has been one of the most prominent educators in his state, has severed active connection with the University School, New Orleans. The new principal of the School is Mr. Percival H. Whaley. He has been connected with the school for the past three years, having come in the beginning to take charge of the Latin and Greek departments. A number of changes will be made in the course of study, and the military feature will be dropped.

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Dr. Edward Charles Pickering, the well-known Director of Harvard College Observatory, was elected June 6 a foreign member of the Royal Society of London, for his signal contributions to astronomical knowledge. The importance of the election may be gathered from the fact that only fifty foreign members have thus far been elected to the Royal Society, a very jealously-guarded list. Those in America who are already foreign members are Simon Newcomb, Alexander Agassiz, George William Hill, and Albert A. Michelson.

In 1886 the Royal Astronomical Society of London awarded Dr. Pickering its gold medal for his photometric work in connection with astronomy.

Prof. Pickering was born in Boston in 1846, and was graduated from Harvard in 1865 with the degree of Bachelor of Sciences. He started his pedagogic career as an instructor in mathematics in the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard, which post he held from 1865 to 1867. From 1867 to 1877 he

was professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which chair he relinquished to assume the directorship of the Harvard College Observatory, a post he still holds. He has received many academic and honorary degrees from many institutions, notably California, Michigan, Chicago, Harvard, and Victoria (England). Besides two Royal Astronomical Society medals, he has also received the Rumford and Draper medals.

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The trustees of Trinity College, Durham, N. C., have elected Prof. Eugene C. Brooks to their newly created chair in the academic department. This chair will be known as the chair of science and history of education. This, with the chair of Biblical literature, established by the North Carolina Conference last fall, will give Trinity two new chairs next year, thus enlarging its usefulness.

The purpose of the newly established chair of education is to make Trinity more closely affiliated with the State's common schools and thereby aid in every possible manner to North Carolina's upbuilding.

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The University of Wisconsin has just received three additions to its faculty by the action of the regents in electing Ros

setter Gleason Cole to be director of the school of music, Orville H. Ensign head of the department of electrical engineering and Mazyok Porcher Ravenel professor of bacteriology. Each of the new professors has won distinction in his chosen profession. Prof. Ensign has been chief electrical and mechanical engineer in the United States reclamation service for several years; Prof. Cole is well known as a composer, musician and musical writer, and Dr. Ravenel is one of the recognized authorities on bovine and human tuberculosis.

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Dr. W. W. Willoughby will become a member of the faculty of the new College of the Political Science which the George Washington University will inaugurate next fall. Dr. Willoughby will divide his time as professor of political science between George Washington and Johns

Hopkins. Dr. Willoughby is a native of Alexandria, Va., and was graduated from the Washington High School in 1885. His academic training was received at the Johns Hopkins University, from which institution he received his B. A. in 1888.

Since 1895 Dr. Willoughby has been a member of the faculty of Johns Hopkins University, first as lecturer, then as associate, then associate professor and finally as professor in charge of the department of political science. In addition to teaching at Johns Hopkins Dr. Willoughby has taken an active part in the work of the American International Law Association. He was one of the leaders in the movement which resulted a few years ago in the formation of the American Political Science Association, and from the start has been the secretary of that organization, as well as editor-inchief of the American Political Science Review, the organ of the association. He is also one of the editors of the Johns Hopkins Studies in Historical and Political Science and editor of the American State Series. He has written a history of the Supreme Court of the United States, and is the author of "The Nature of the State," "The Rights and Duties of American Citizenship," "Social Justice," "The Political Theories of the Ancient World" and "The American Constitutional System."

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Professor Lodge of the department of Latin will edit and issue from Teachers

College, New York City, the new Classical Weekly, as the organ of the Classical

Association of the Middle States and Maryland. The periodical continues the issues of the Latin Leaflet, hitherto issued by the New York Latin Club. It will, however, be doubled in size.

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The Reverend J. E. Kirbye, D. D., president of Drury College of Springfield, Mo., presented his resignation at a special meeting of the Board of Trustees last month. The resignation was accepted with regrets.

The Reverend J. H. George, Ph. D., D. D., pastor of the First Congregational

Church of Burlington, Vt., was elected president in his stead.

Prof. W. L. Enfield, head of the physical science department of the Wichita (Kan.) high school, has been elected to a chair in the Kansas State Agricultural College at Manhattan.

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The trustees of Hedding College, Abingdon, Ill., have offered the position of president to the Reverend W. P. McVey, pastor of the Spencer Memorial Church, at Rock Island, to succeed the Reverend Harry Gough. The Reverend Gough has accepted a position as a member of the faculty of De Pauw University, at Greencastle, Ind.

Mr. McVey is a native of Iowa, a graduate of the Iowa State University, and the Drew Theological Seminary.

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Professor James H. Breasted, of the University of Chicago, has been admitted to membership in the German Academy of Science-a distinction seldom conferred on aliens. Professor Breasted's work as an Egyptologist won him the coveted honor.

James Henry Breasted is a famous Egyptologist, and is professor of Egyptology and oriental history in the University of Chicago. Recently he arrived. at Berlin after making explorations in the upper Nile region that resulted in notable discoveries. Professor Breasted was born at Rockford, Ill., and was graduated from Northwestern University in 1888. He then studied Hebrew and made several exploring expeditions. in Egypt. Many archaeological works have been compiled by him. Professor Breasted is director of the Haskell Oriental Museum, and associate editor of the American Journal of Semitic Languages. He is the author of an English edition of Erman's Egyptian Grammar.

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At a meeting of the trustees Georgetown College, Georgetown, Ky., Dr. J. J. Taylor tendered his resignation. as president of the faculty of the college and the resignation was accepted. Dr

Albert Harkness, professor emeritus of languages at Brown University, died at his home in Providence on May 27. The death of Dr. Harkness removes one of America's best-known scholars in the field of philology and classical languages. He was the founder of the American Philological Association, and one of the organizers of the American School of Classical Studies, at Athens. He was also widely known as an author and editor, having published a large number of Latin text-books. He was a member of the Rhode Island Historical Society-its president since 1903-and a member of the Board of Fellows of Brown University.

Professor Harkness, who was born in Mendon, Mass., in 1822, was a graduate of Brown University, of the class of 1842. Soon after his graduation he became a teacher in the Providence High School, and was senior master from 1845 to 1853. The two following years were spent abroad in travel and at the Universities of Berlin, Bonn, and Gottingen. The degree of Ph.D. was conferred upon him by Bonn, in 1845, and in 1869 he received the LL.D. from Brown.

William H. Payne, for more than thirteen years president of Peabody Normal College of Nashville, died on June 17th at his home in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Dr. Payne was the second president of Peabody Normal College, having in 1888 succeeded the late Eben S. Stearns, who was the first head of that institution. After occupying the office for thirteen years, Dr. Payne in 1901 resigned to accept the place of professor of education in the University of Michigan, a position which he had held before his election to the presidency of Peabody. He was professor of education when the

Prof. Alexander Stewart Herschel, M. A., the distinguished astronomer, died on June 18, 1907, at the Observatory House, Slough, Bucks, where his grandfather, Sir William Herschel, and Sir John Herschel made most of their world-famous discoveries.

Prof. Herschel was a fellow of the Royal Society and was a doctor of civil law. He was professor of physics and experimental philosophy at the Durham College of Science at Newcastle-onTyne.

Miss Caroline A. Carpenter, who for thirty-two years had been connected with the Lasell Seminary in Boston, died at the close of the graduating exercises, on June 12. Miss Carpenter was born in Saratoga Springs, N. Y., was educated in the public schools there and at Emma Willard Seminary. Before going to Lasell Seminary she conducted a private school of her own.

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Guy W. Eastman, an instructor in physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was recently killed by

In a criticism of Hernani Balzac states that "a drama is the expression of a human passion, an individuality, or some great deed." The truth of this statement is apparent in the great dramas of Shakespeare, Sophocles and Schiller, but it leaves a certain vagueness in a mind associated with the more modern dramas of Ibsen and Pinero. There is something more in a drama-as we understand it— than Balzac's naked definition. A novel could do the same thing, and yet it is distinctly different from the drama. A play contains, of necessity, a bundle of details which go to support the idea; and the lack of these details often destroys an otherwise good drama. Perhaps, then, if the necessities of a dramatist be hastily sketched, some idea of these minor essential facts may be obtained. For such facts are the stepping-stones to success and the stumbling-blocks of failure. Of course, the first and most obvious demand upon a playwright is that he be able to tell a straight-forward story. There must be no deviation from direct logical sequence; and every episode must be a step toward the denouement. Not

only must he thus have an aim, but he must possess ammunition; so this very naturally implies a knowledge of le metier de dramatique or a technical skill in construction. This covers very naturally a thorough knowledge of stage limitations and an acquaintance with theatrical probability. Not only does the dramatist consider the successive situations, but the characters are subject to different treatment than in the novel. It is true that these concrete figments of the dramatist's mind may be exposed or portrayed by their actions under certain stimulation; but as a rule, this delineation of character must be illustrated solely by dialogue. Hence, there has developed a very distinct difference between dramatic and literary language, though in great dramatists these are combined. Still, the dramatist can rely on no subtle psychological description to mount his puppets-they must egoistically proclaim themselves by word and deed alone.

To Balzac, these necessary details seemed trivial. He never was bothered by conventions; for, in his novels, he had created them. But he had views on the

drama, which before his plays are considered should be discussed briefly in connection with the dramatic conventions here so scantily sketched. It is not difficult to see from his detailed criticism of Hernani that he had great faith in the educational end of the drama. The playwright could instruct the people much better than the novelist, and he could present interrogation marks of great moral import. Before his audience he could deftly paint the shades of right and wrong; he could summon fate to weigh the balances. The eye could see justice at work; it needed no imagination. to force the moral. Indeed, the theatre is the great educator and moral preceptor. Balzac pays little attention to the actual pleasure it gives, except so far as a moral may be easier taken to heart when it enters on the wings of a smile. It is true, however, that in his numerous published letters he has little to say on this particular side of the subject; but he does present with ample emphasis one important and somewhat sordid function of the drama-its power of making money. One must not be too cynical in judging the great work of the father of realism, yet it must be recalled that Balzac sought that which he most condemned-gold. He was a victim of his own hatred and scrambled after wealth, if not as greedily, at least as incessantly as his own Pere Grandet. Before his first play was produced his letters to Madame Hanska indicate his desire for immediate wealth is it not natural that he, too, should turn to the theatre where so many had made fortunes? He had seen his friend, Victor Hugo, triumph with Hernani and Ruy Blas; and he could easily remember the gold showered on Dumas, pere, when Henri II, Anthony and Tour de Nesle scored their hits. So then the desire for immediate wealth prompted him to write his dramatic works.

But while this is true, they must not be considered an immature offspring of his tender years. When Balzac was very young he wrote a high-flown, lugubrious tragedy with the dignified, yet somewhat prosaic name of "Cromwell." This very justly never saw light, though it served to convince his parents that his past was a failure and his future a haze of un

certainty. The plays eventually published in his collected edition were constructed in the hey-day of his genius, that is, between 1838 and 1850. And these plays, now very admirably translated into English, and prepared with explanatory notes by E. de Valcourt-Vermont, have all been interpreted by competent actors upon the Parisian stage. Hence they deserve notice as they are part of dramatic literature, but mainly because they were written by Honore de Balzac.

Balzac had just finished that pathetic little story of Pierette, when, on March 14, 1842, at the Theatre de la Porte St. Martin, he produced his first drama. The well-known actor, Frederick Lemaitre, assumed the title role thoroughly believing in the play's success. The plot of Vautrin is entirely original with Balzac, though he borrows the main idea and the principal character from the novels. Vautrin, it will be recalled, is the famous galley-convict, Jacques Collin, who figures so conspicuously in Pere Goriot and Les Illusions Perdues. And in the fourth part of the latter novel is found the rather starting plot of this drama. The polished Lucien de Rubempre, who is Vautrin's instrument of revenge against society, has in Vautrin become Raoul de Frescas much toned down and more honest. Vautrin himself is different, though his egotistic assurance of his own power, his cynical contempt for the world and his marvellous knowledge of human nature is much the same. Indeed, the strength of the play lies as much in this accurate and life-like character-drawing as in the unusual brilliancy of the dialogue. Balzac casts epigrams over the entire play with a prodigal hand, and they, rather than the plot or the people, come home to the reader. For the drama itself is clumsily constructed, and that which in the novel is at least plausible, becomes decidedly improbable on the stage. It is interesting to note Balzac's own opinion of it, which he advances in a letter written to Madame Hanska during February, 1840; ". I despair

ed of it ten days ago; I thought the play stupid, and I was right. I wrote it all over again, and I now think it passable. But it will always be a poor play. I have yielded to the desire to put a romantic