There are in Spain eight universities. -at Barcelona, Granada, Madrid, Salamanca, Seville, Valencia, Valladolid and Saragossa-but here I am reminded. of the French student who essayed an examiantion at the Beaux-Arts. His question bade him describe the court costumes of the time of Francis I-of which he knew nothing-so after two short lines on the matter, he said: "But let us rather speak of the costumes of the court of Louis XIV"-and so went on. Unhappily-the examiners were industrious that year, and somebody read his paper-and our student was plucked. I would be honest from the beginning, and have no man think to find anything suggesting the title in these lines. Let us rather speak of other things, such as suggest themselves in fancy when one thinks of Spain-of scenery, and ruins. and cities, and pictures and churches, and beggars, and princes, and bull-fights --and, by the way, the corrida is not so far from my mishandled subject that I may not begin with a bull-fight story.

Throughout the summer and autumn of 1897 there were heavy rains in eastern Spain, and the little Guadalaviar overflowed the rich garden of Valencia, and there was much suffering, and many were homeless. Now the rector of the University of Valencia was a good and a charitable man, and he pitied these unfortunates, and sought to help them. To that end he conceived a grand charity bull-fight at which the greatest toreros and the most exclusive bulls should take part, and which should furnish money and meat, and sport. Pan y Toros! So he left his university duties and began the arrangements. The project grew upon him, he grew enthusiastic, and he tore about through Spain, seeking. He went to Cordova to see Guerita, and dashed into Leon after Mazzantini, and he laid the best "ganaderias" of Andalusia under contribution for their choicest bulls. The day of the fight arrived, but somehow things did not seem to go well;

the fighters did not turn up, the bulls were slow-there was no fun, no multitude, no money. It was all a flat failure and the minister of the interior, who has charge of such things, determined to stamp the whole thing with his disapproval. He removed the rector from his curule chair. This act aroused all Spain, and one of the lesser Madrilene newspapers published a long article in praise of the ministerial deed. passed the office of this paper on the day following. A yelling mob filled the street

I

the windows of the office were broken, and much of its furniture had been passed out of doors by ungentle hands. The mob was made up of Spanish students, and my meeting with it was my introduction to Spanish student life. I had sought the student before in the libraries of Madrid. I had even nosed around the university, but I had gone astray, it seemed. He was here, fighting in the street, and as I looked him over that day, and the day following, for the fighting was renewed, it seemed to me that he rather belonged where I had found him. He was not an encouraging sight from an academic point of view. He was young, thoughtless, very violent, rather surprisingly well dressed, and dirty with national dirt plus student dirt. So that he was very dirty.

So much by way of exordium. As my acquaintance with Madrid became more intimate I grew to know where to look for the student and to rather enjoy watching him. There were certain cafes that he frequented, there was the bull ring, and, to do him justice, there was the Prado gallery of a Sunday morning, and the symphony concerts on Sunday afternoons-and gradually, among the many readers in the libraries, one came to be able to pick out the students. There were never many of these, and, as far as I could learn from observation and inquiry, most of them were in physics, mathematics or medicine. The man

uscript room of the national library was almost deserted, in spite of its wealthone found there an occasional foreigner, or once in awhile some mournful Spaniard, copying for some foreigner, at so much a folio. At the academy of history it was much the same-the men at work there seemed distinctly of an older class, who had come for some special task. Aside from the nature of the student himself the reason for this is not far to seek. The Madrid libraries are splendid collections, but they are managed in a way that discourages the serious beginner. The material is there, but none of the tools, and the attendants in the general libraries unite a most charming willingness and courtesy to an alarming ignorance of books and writers and of all things bibliographical. There is nothing that they will not gladly do for you. They will even let a cigarette go out while they answer your questions; but they don't know-they never know. The national library at Madrid has full files of Don Quixote and Gedeon, but they have never heard of the Romania nor of the Zeitschrift. You may find a Cid manuscript, but you will ask in vain for Mila's work explaining it, and so it goes. So it is small wonder that studentkind comes rarely to the great building on the Castellana.

A

The Madrid student has no Bohemia of his own. He does not appear to create a student life as we undertsand it. He has no individual atmosphere. German student, or even a Frenchman, is a student nearly all the time, wherever you may meet him. In Germany he is apt to wear his secret graven on his forehead. The Frenchman betrays his by violent devotion to some peculiarly unstable philosophy. The Spaniard is different, when you are with him you have a never-failing desire to lose him in the universal race of small boys. He has no dignity of his own. I suppose that the causes for this are rather far to seek, for what has just been said of the Spanish student is very far from being true of the Spanish race. To my mind there are few things finer than an old villano of the Castiles or of Leon, quiet, narrow, unbending, often very ignorant, but honest and distinctly imposing, infinitely su

perior to his compeer of Italy, and more attractive because more trustworthy than the French paysan. He is generous, too, after you have pierced his shell, and his offer, of his home is not the meaningless formula of the city farewell. But it is not from his stock that the ranks of Spanish students are recruited. There is little to encourage the desire for higher education among the middle classes in Spain. When the climate speaks, it is to dissuade, and, as military service is not compulsory, there is not the artificial stimulus that causes the youth of northern Europe to make sacrifice of time and effort for the sake of learning. Compulsory military service is one of the watchwords of Spanish republicanism, and its adoption is not improbable. Its advantages and drawbacks in general are not our affair; but it can hardly be doubted that it would be a strong factor in disseminating ideas among the common people, for the matter would in such case inevitably come into the hands of those who could have nothing to gain in discouraging progress-which is now not always the case. I do not wish to be understood as foreseeing a second renaissance, or any systematic plan even of developing higher education in Spain along modern lines-it will take more to do than one can dream of; but some good may come soon, and a man sees more with one eye open than when he has both closed.

One is naturally led in many ways to draw bits of comparison between Spain and Italy, and we find ourselves mentally determining that Italian railways are better than Spanish, Spanish hotels altogether better than Italian, Italian beggars more offensive though less numerous than their Iberian brothers, and so on. And it is not easy not to extend the practice to things of the mind. There is no little virtue in examining a people with a view of seeing what they are doing to keep their traditions alive and to make their acquaintance with their own. past and progress definite and accurate and profound; and here the Spaniards fail miserably in any comparative sense. While the Italian universities show men like D'Ovidio, Ascoli, Monaci, Rajana, real pioneers in the study of the

language of their country, Spain can offer but silence. If we except the brilliant literature work of D. Marcelino Méndez y Pelayo, to whose vast learning and unwearying courtesy every scholarly visitor to Spain is indebted in greater or less measure, it can be said that there is nothing doing. While the Italians are sending young scholars dialect-hunting in all directions, Spain has nobody to send, nor even the thought of sending. There is a good catalogue of the manuscripts of the Spanish libraries, written by an Austrian, paid for by the Vienna academy. A Frenchman has put together a good book on the Spanish dialects, Germans are doing the work of the Spanish grammar, and the best history of Spanish literature in Spanish is the translation of a work an American wrote fifty years ago.

These things being so, and they are so, it would be futile to ask of Spain student life, student traditions, a scholarly atmosphere. We in America are

still given to thinking of Spain as the land where students walk abroadchiefly at night-clad in velvet and feathers, with doublet and hose, and sword, with a guitar, perhaps. The Spanish professor of our dreams wears a high conical hat, very strange spectacles and an uncommonly large nose, and reeks with snuff and the eozoic erudition of the schools. The reality is not quite so bad. The universities have lost the serious medieval devotion to form and do not seem to have caught a modern eagerness for truth. Their ways are not ours. So much we know, but we do not understand their ways. If we knew more of them, and they more of us, there would be much more mutual charity, I am sure, and a large measure of bitterness would have remained unspent. Pero, basta.

Pasé por la cabreriza,

Y allí me dieron dos quesos
Uno para mí y el otro
Para el que escuchare aquesto.

Rural education in Denmark averages above that of any other country in the world, and this class has so gained the ascendancy, that its dialect is the language of the Rigsdag or Danish Parliament. This unusual state of affairs is in the main due to the people's high schools, or (as they have been popularly named) the peasant universities, which come intimately in touch with the two millions of Danish people, and have eliminated illiteracy.

The vast system of schools owes its creation some sixty years ago to the efforts of a single man, Grundtvig, who believed that around the age of twentymen and women manifest a desire to participate actively in life; and that along side of their routine work they should be encouraged to attain an education of a higher type under the guidance of those who had an educational message to convey. Grundtvig claimed that if the past achievements of man

kind could be sympathetically unfolded to eager minds, a national culture would be a fact, and life would at all times serve as an efficient school. As an educational idea, Grundtvig's view was entirely original and Northern in character. It laid stress upon the teacher.

Grundtvig died without having realized his purpose; but several years later -in 1845-a professor of Danish literature succeeded in raising funds to carry out his idea of establishing a people's high school. Certain academic features that clung to his venture at once brought a protest against the distortion of Grundtvig's views, and an enthusiastic scholar named Kold established a model high school from whose work all traces of classicism and formality were removed. Plain talks in familiar fashion on useful subjects were the rule, having in view the awakening of the least receptive mind on the rude benches in the school room.

girls' department. Subjects for the regular lectures are taken from history, geography, mathematics, hygiene, political and social economy, mythology, and the Bible; and countless subjects afford a basis for talks and discussions.

On the whole, the pupils are required to listen rather than to read, seeking after the advantage-as Grundtvig designed-of the living word over the dead letter.' And nearly all the high school pupils are excellent listeners, while the teachers are equally admirable lecturers. In addition, pupils and teachers get together on every conceivable occasion, and the teachers' houses are always open to the students.

The absence of examinations

makes

the pupil free and easy in his movements. The commencement exercises at the close of each school term serve to bring the students in touch with prominent men and women who gather from far and near, and whose talks are spurs to the young men and women ready to return to their home life.

It is finally to be noted that the system has developed teachers who have won European fame; but they resist tempting offers from without, and devote themselves to these Peasant Universities.

Gifts to American education have been on a grand scale for the last eight or ten years and never reached as great a total in a like period as in the last six months. Recently at Harvard the class. that graduated twenty-five years ago gave the university $150,000, and it was suggested that a similar jubilee offering be provided by the graduates of each successive class. The accepted idea in this country, is that every American should have ready access to a thorough training and to the stores of knowledge on which it is based. Gifts of this nature have the merit of perpetuity. They do not simply meet some temporary demand. They perform their work century after century, and often carry a large increment.

It is now "National Education Association of the United States." The "al" of Educational has been cut off, and "of the United States" has been added.

* * *

Chancellor James R. Day of Syracuse University has announced the receipt of $100,000 from Mrs. Russell Sage for the new Teachers' College of Syracuse University. Some time ago the university purchased the Yates Castle, formerly the Longstreet Castle, built by General Longstreet, with fourteen acres of land, adjoining the campus. The bequest of Mrs. Sage will reimburse the university and provide for improvements on the property. Mrs. Sage formerly lived in the castle, and it is her desire that it be maintained, although it is not

compulsory for the university to conduct the Teachers' College in it.

* * *

The trustees of Howard Pavne College, Brownwood, Texas, have just purchased additional ground adjoining the college campus to the amount of $7.600 for the purpose of locating a girls' dormitory thereon. The dormitory is to cost. $30,000 and the money there for is already assured. This building, together with the $15.000 wing nearing completion, will easily place this school in the front rank of Western colleges.

* * *

Announcement was made last month that Mr. Joseph Larwill, of Kansas City, had made a gift of $10,000 to Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio.

* * *

The University of Illinois is planning for the dedication of its new auditorium in October or November. The plan includes the production of the works of the most eminent native-born American composer now living, under his own direction. A tablet in commemoration of the event will be placed in the hall. It is the hope of the university authorities to hold similar musical festivals in the future under the direction of famous composers of this and other lands, each of which will also be commemorated by similar tablets.

For the purpose of choosing the first American to be thus honored, about four thousand letters have been sent to capable music critics asking them to name three composers whom they consider most worthy of this distinction. If there is any substantial unanimity in the replies received, the choice will be determined in this way.

The auditorium is a handsome building architecturally, and will seat 2,500.

* * *

Owing to the failure of the Caldwell College people to raise sufficient funds to fulfill the conditions under which the gift of J. A. Shuttleworth of Louisville was offered to establish a woman's college at Danville, Ky., the offer has been withdrawn. On June 5, 1907, the deeds of James A. Shuttleworth and of Caldwell College were in escrow to be deliv

ered to the Woman's College provided $51,000 was paid into the treasury of the Woman's College on or before July I, 1907. The Northern Synod guaranteed that one-half of the $51,000 would be on hand in cash before July 1, and the Southern Synod had $27,000 subscribed, so President Acheson's statement was fully sustained by the facts.

On June 29 J. A. Quisenberry, treasurer for the committee of the Northern Synod, notified the Fidelity Trust Company that his committee had on hand in cash $25.500, being their half of the $51,000 needed to secure Mr. Shuttleworth's deed and also sent a copy of this notice to Mr. Shuttleworth, July 1, passed without the other half of the $51,000 being paid in, but still the friends of the Woman's College felt that the failure to collect the remainder of the money was only technical and that all would be arranged in a few days.

On July 6 a new proposition from Mr. Shuttleworth was delivered to the representatives of the two synods. This proposition provided for amending the charter which had been approved by all interested parties and by both synods of the Presbyterian Church. A leading feature of this charter was a first board of eight trustees named in the charter, who, by unanimous action, could increase their number to sixteen members.

Mr. Shuttleworth's proposition asked that the board be increased and that each side name a certain number independent of the other church. Besides this he asked that he be given power to name the college on account of generous gifts proposed to be made by him and that the Synod, U. S. A., Northern, put up $25,000 and guarantee that an additional $4,000 be raised before Jan. 1, 1908, so that Mr. Carnegie's gift of $20,000 might be secured.

Mr. Shuttleworth required all of the conditions to be met before Aug. 1, 1907, or his proposition would be void. His propositions about money were entirely acceptable to the committee of the Northern Synod and they notified him that no more appropriate name than his Own could be placed on the insitution, provided he would furnish a complete plant