the teacher, for the professions are practically one.

"As a boy I was taught in the schools. the alphabet, each letter beginning some biblical name. I am grateful to my Sunday-school teacher, but I look back with the blush of indignation on my cheek that the church had nothing better to give. We do not wish those times to come back.

The

"There are many signs of improvement, chief of which is the emphasis which is now being laid on the teaching function of the sacred ministry. world is wearied and tired of being exhorted; it wants to be taught. The ethical consciousness of our national life, I am sorry to say, was not revived by the Christian church, but by those outside. It was not Rev. Dr. Hughes, minister, who called attention to the corruption in high financial life, but his son, Charles E. Hughes, lawyer, who was recently elected governor of New York. The morality of fifty years ago, which still prevails, is extremely individualistic, and in reality a caricature.

"Another sign of improvement is the fresh understanding of childhood. We have often whipped the child for falsifying, when, after all, it was nothing more serious than the exuberance of a growing imagination. Our conception of life itself has changed. The historical method of study and observation has revolutionized the world. Modern biblical scholarship has rendered repetitions of Ingersoll and Tom Paine impos

sible forever.

"The objector to the Bible often pointed out the inhumanity of Jael, who drove a tent-pin in the temples of an adversary, after enticing him in her tent, as an example of Old Testament religion and morals. I answer we cannot expect the forgiveness of sins inculcated in the sermon on the mount as a part of the religious life of Israel in the primitive period of the 'judges.' We are told that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were polygamists, and acceptable in the sight of God. I answer that these leaders of their race would not be fitted for the modern Christian church. Why should there not be as much progress in morals and religion as in music and arts? If the New

Testament did not improve on the Old, I would take it as an evidence of fraud."

One who marks current discussion of college English will be reminded of an

University Teaching of English.

ungrammatical but expressive catchword of twenty-five years ago: "Hit him again; he's Irish, and he hasn't no friends." The latest castigator of these studies, Prof. G. R. Carpenter, deals the faithful wounds of a friend, being himself the incumbent of a chair of English in Columbia University. His criticism, as contained in the Columbia Quarterly, affects English as taught in the universities. He notes that many Ph.D.'s in English have received a training wholly scrappy, and quite apart from the subjects they are to teach in the colleges. Thus we fill our chairs with erudite scholars, to be sure, but myopic teachers, disqualified from taking comprehensive views even on their specialty. Naturally such men are poor leaders of youth, having merely vague conceptions both of literary values and of pedagogical possibilities.

A little acquaintance with college faculties will show that professors of this limited sort are by no means rare. We venture to go further, and assert that most of the good teachers of English have become so through a combination of native ability and vitality sufficient to overcome the defects of their university education. Many a faithful teacher, reviewing his own university career, would say, not that it was bad in itself or wasted, but that it had been grossly unsystematic and relatively unprofitable as regards the actual service of teaching. In similar fashion, many a Grecian who has gloriously "settled hoti's business," is compelled, tardily and ingloriously, to acquire some familiarity with Greek literature. In fine, the university often not merely neglects the more valuable studies, but so urgently puts forward the less valuable, that the student has no leisure for repairing individually the gaps in a hap-hazard curriculum. Nothing is more common than to find a doctor of philosophy whose mental acquisition, after all, consists of unco-ordinated

snippets of literary history and philology a dash of Anglo-Saxon Poetry, and the Chester Plays; a smattering of Gothic, and a sample of the Minnesänger; a semester of Gower, and one of Dr. Donne; a soupcon of Anglo-Saxon metre, and Aristotelian critiques of poetry-such is the ragout that is frequently served up in the name of university education. Evidently a student who escapes such a course with his associative faculties unimpaired is a monument to his own mental equipoise, not to the intelligence of the university that made him a doctor.

The cause of this confusion is largely false ideals of research inherited from Germany, but even more the absence of clear thinking in university, administrators and teachers. From Germany we have imported the notion that the process of investigation is everything; the materials quite indifferent. In this view there is a plausible disinterestedness, and just enough truth to obscure the fundamental error. We would not minimize the value of any sort of truth, nor the desirability of research. however minute and remote from contemporary importance; but there is a world-wide difference between such self-effacing investigation pursued by a trained scholar as part of a large and well-reasoned plan, and similar studies pursued by a novice in the name of education. The distinction is fundamental; what in the first case may seem necessary and heroic, becomes in the second merely casual and foolish.

If Germany has thus imposed upon us an eminently unphilosophical notion of the relation of research to university education and college teaching, she has unconsciously done us a deeper harm by confounding in the one word "philology" a great variety of linguistic and literary studies, of differing importance and availability. The ignorant sort of dilettanteism we have already had; we have added a more insidious because a learned and plausible sort. The gushing person who imagines that he can teach English literature by plenary inspiration, without any knowledge of the history of the language or even without first-hand study of the history of the

literature is, after all, becoming rapidly discredited; the philologer who, on the basis of inarticulate enthusiasms and incommunicable tastes, fixes himself in a chair of literature is far more detrimental to sound studies. He is learned, and he gives to college presidents the impression of being also wise, which generally he is not. The quarrel here is not with philology, as such, but with those who, without comprehensive views or noteworthy attainment even in linguistics, dabble languidly in both fields; whose vaunted investigations frequently consist merely of marginalia; whose teaching is regulated not by any plan either philological or literary, but by the passing curiosity of the year or by the casual pressure of publisher or editor. Men of this type, however vast their merely cumulative attainments may be, are dilettantes-true successors of the Alexandrian scholiasts and the Della-Cruscans.

Without exaggeration, this is the temper that our university education tends. to produce, and this is the reason why both our college teaching and our productive scholarship are of a scrappy and ineffective order. Of course, the remedy for impressionism is principle, and for intellectual disorder, logic. What we need in the present instance is a clear perception of ends. When the conditions of a rationalized education and the practical qualifications for college teaching are fairly considered, it will seem absurd to equip all college teachers of English as investigators in the German sense; it will seem culpable to impose merely random philological studies, and still worse to prescribe them for the student of literary history. It will seem indispensable to observe a certain sequence, and preposterous to omit the most rewarding authors and periods. simply because they do not afford likely topics for doctoral dissertations. The real reform will come when university authorities have some conception of the distinctions between linguistic and literary study. Scholars like Professor Carpenter can do a good service by clear thinking and plain speaking on this matter. It is for those who have been the victims of learned dilettanteism to make

themselves heard. Reason is mighty and must prevail. The rationalization even of university education in English is not beyond hope.

Criticises Lack of Religious Training.

spoke "The

Rev. J. N. Kildahl, D. D., president of St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minn., recently on Power and Work of the Christian College." His discourse sought to show more and more the necessity of church colleges and while he did not criticise state colleges for the educational work accomplished, he was plain in stating that they were lacking in theology and that the church. was being sadly neglected in the state institutions.

Among the other things Rev. Kildahl said: "The object of the Christian college is to teach the Christian doctrine and to develop influences for Christian lives and produce the highest type of men and women. Christian colleges give a thorough training and their teachings are of a definite and positive character. They exercise a Christian influence, not only making religion a part of the curriculum but making all conform to Christian rules. All teachers must

base their work on a Christian spirit, which must be dominating. They must be in a Christian atmosphere. Professors must be orthodox in their teachings. You will find a different student body at the Christian colleges from un-Christian institutions.

"There is no stronger power for good than the Word of God. Nothing better can be introduced into our colleges. What we need is the Christian college. We need more educated Christian men and women. Christians are the salt of the world. Those who lead in the college have more power than those who are being led and the heads of our institutions should be men of thought and ability. It makes no difference how many titles a man has, he must give himself up to religion. It is not sufficient to know which is right and which is wrong, but he must have the power to act for the good.

"We need Christian statesmen, Christian aldermen, lawyers, legislators, cor

poration presidents, pastors, and fathers and mothers. We need men who cannot be bought. The true Christian will not sell his vote in the legislature or congress. We need Christian backbone. The Christian bank president will not rob that institution, the Christian instructor will not ridicule the church. You must look to the Christian college for the men we need. The state colleges lack in theology. You can't find them there."

In his annual report on Columbia University affairs President Nicholas Murray Butler states the President Butler university needs Asks Trustees for $12,000,000. $12,000,000 at once. Last year the sum designated in his report was $10,000,ooo. The chief cause for the increase this year, as stated by Dr. Butler, is the immediate necessity of raising the salaries which the members of the faculty at present receive.

"Despite the heavy burdens upon the corporation," says President Butler, "it is not possible longer to avoid facing the fact that the salaries paid to the professors and adjunct professors of the university are inadequate, and that the effects of this inadequacy are deplorable.

"The average salary paid to the III professors in receipt of compensation is $3.746.85, and the average salary paid to the 39 adjunct professors is $2,126.92. It will be seen, therefore, that the average salary paid to a Columbia University professor in 1906 is almost exactly onehalf of the sum named by the trustees in 1876 as necessary to enable him to maintain his proper position in the community.

"Serious as this comparison appears at first glance, a consideration of all the attendant circumstances will make it more serious still. If the professors in 1876 were able to make successful appeal for an increase of compensation because of the increased cost of living as compared with 1857, what shall be said of the professors of 1906, who have to meet a cost of living increased far beyond the standard which prevailed in 1876?"

Dr. Butler then proceeds to point out that the cost of living during the past thirty years has increased between 10 and 20 per cent. He suggests that an average addition of $1,000 at least to each professor should be made at once. This, alone, would absorb the interest at 5 per cent on a capital of more than $3,000,000. Several important additions and changes in the faculty are now pending, which, however, cannot be consummated until the desired funds are obtained.

In the line of gifts to the university it was announced that during the last year sums amounting in all to $1,050,323.16 were received to aid in carrying on or in extending the work at Columbia. Three of these gifts were for the endowment of professorships, the George Blumenthal fund for a chair in politics, the Edward R. Carpenter fund for a chair on the history of civilization, and the James Speyer fund to endow the Theodore Roosevelt professorship in the University of Berlin.

In regard to the future religious policy of the university, Dr. Butler said:

"Columbia University is a Christian institution, but by its charter and traditions it is a catholic institution as well, and the spirit of St. Paul's Chapel will be as broad and as tolerant as the spirit of the university. Its office will be to preach and teach Christian religion and Christian morals in the broadest and most fundamental sense of those terms.

"The chapel pulpit will be free to any Christian minister or other who may from time to time be invited to occupy it."

In spite of the recent additions to the outlay on the campus, Dr. Butler believes that still more room is necessary for the adequate housing of the rapidly growing schools in the university. A sum of $5,000,000, he states, will be necessary to construct the new buildings, among which the most important are Kent Hall, where the Schools of Law and Political Science will be housed, new dormitories for resident students, and also the School of Journalism.

In regard to the proposed stadium. which is to be built on the waterfront of the Hudson River, extending from

116th street to 120th street, Dr. Butler reported favorably. The plans are in course of preparation, and work will commence as soon as the necessary legislation has been concluded. The cost of the new stadium is estimated at $1,000,000.

The indebtedness of the university at the close of the fiscal year ended June 30, 1906, amounted to $2,900,000.

"So long as this heavy indebtedness remains," says Dr. Butler, "and funds must be found to meet the annual interest charge upon it, so long will the university suffer from its present embarrassment. At present the educational work of the university is being conducted without any addition to the debt. Unfortunately, severe and often harmful economies and sacrifices are necessary in order to make this possible."

In the latter part of the report Dr. Butler takes occasion to make a definite statement regarding his ideas on the game of football; a statement, it may be depended upon, which is the official platform practically on which Columbia will hereafter rest. After dealing at length with the causes which led up to the abolition of the game at Columbia last year, Dr. Butler said:

"The moral qualities which it was supposed to foster were not strongly in evidence. The most important football games had become in fact purely professional contests, for professionalism is not so much of a thing of money as it is a thing of spirit and point of view. At times, when students should themselves be taking physical exercise for their own good they stood grouped by hundreds, watching a contest between trained representatives of their own institution and another.

"That these contests were gladiatorial in character the history of the last few years of the game plainly proves."

less atomic weight than any element heretofore known; in fact, only a small fraction of the atomic weight of hydrogen.. It is further stated that such an element, the electron, was known before but that Prof. Rydberg has discovered that it does not consist of any separate kind of material. It is thought that the consequences of this will be exceedingly important, and will lead to the discovery that metals are not simple elements but are composed of electrons. It will follow, also, that electrons, as the new element is called by Prof. Rydberg, is a universal gas which, at all events, forms an atmosphere which prevails throughout our solar system. It is expected, also, that the new discovery will lead to full scientific explanations of many things which have remained doubtful or unexplained, as, for instance, the magnetic storms in connection with sun spots periods, the northern lights, the terrestrial magnetism.

has been collecting data and forming opinions for the final decision which came recently.

The following gives the principal points covered: "This report is intended to show that fraternities and sororities as they exist in our high schools are detrimental in the influence upon the school in which they exist, that they are detrimental to the pupil himself in that they undermine the character and become a fetich to be worshiped by boys and girls, creating disloyalty to the parents as well as to the school; that they are mere imitators of college life, leading to an early manipulation of community politics; that they are the cause of jealousies; that their standards are entirely different from that of the school; that only the elect are called; that often they are an element of danger and show a truculence absolutely comical in its character if it were not so serious in its trend and effects, and, finally, that they are undemocratic and unsocial in that all pupils should enjoy the advantages offered. 'Once a member always a member' creates a loyalty to a group that becomes a disloyalty to the whole.

"Therefore, it is resolved, that it is the judgment of the deans and principals of the schools affiliated with the University of Chicago that neither the fraternity nor the sorority has a place in secondary schools and that, therefore, both are condemned."

Recommendations were made to the boards of education in all of the cities in the west that rules similar to those found in Des Moines and Seattle be adopted and a strong fight waged against the high school clubs.