66 thusiastic endorsement of Froude's fierceness, and calls her an ardent convert." The daughter of Colonel Patrick Guiney, of the Ninth Massachusetts, the heroic soldier and devout Catholic who is said to have died in the snow on his way to Mass, is not a convert," "ardent" or otherwise. Historical critics should not indulge in romance. EDUCATION. The New Ireland Review for March says that if we take the whole of Prussia into account, we find for every million Catholic males 16.9 are ordinary professors; the corresponding numbers for the Protestants being 33.6 and for the Jews 65.5. In the United States Report of Industrial Education in Germany, an outline of primary education in that country is given: At the base of the German educational edifice lie the Volksschulen or common schools. Attendance is compulsory from six or seven to fourteen. Through social and financial distinctions these schools are divided into three classes, viz. for the poor, middle and rich class of people. All are, however, taught by well qualified teachers. At the age of ten a decision must be made upon what kind of education is to follow, determined of course by the parents' means; either to continue in the Volksschule or to pass to the Höhere-Schule or the Hochschule, namely, common, secondary or higher education. The Volksschule is completed at fourteen, but the law usually, though not invariably, compels the graduates from them to attend evening schools. The continuation schools are either a repetition of some of the most necessary studies of the .Volksschule or an industrial school, or finally a commercial school. It is noteworthy that the child gets training in matters of industry only after leaving the common schools. This continuation school ends at 'fifteen, sixteen or seventeen years of age. The secondary grades are called höhere Schule. Six years successful work in them entitles to one year volutary military service instead of two, or even of three years regular service, and in addition affords an opportunity to become an officer in the army. These secondary schools are classical, semiclassical or non-classical. They have six or more years' courses. The sixyear schools are called Progymnasien, Real-Progymnasien, and Realschulen. The nine-year schools are styled Gymnasien, Realgymnasien, and Ober-Realschulen. The Realschulen are contemporaneous with Germany's great commercial movement. The average age of the student who begins work in the higher institutions of learning is nineteen or twenty. Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the Premier of Canada, says: "I thank heaven that in our schools young children are taught Christian morals and Christian doctrine. Either the Canadian system is right or the American system is right. I 'know we are right," he added with emphasis. This notable utterance was made in full parliament at Ottawa, when Sir Wilfrid was introducing the bill for the two new Canadian provinces, in which he proposes to have separate schools supported out of government money. Father Burnichon writes in the Etudes of February 20, 1905: 'In all the abominable line of informers who have passed before the horrified gaze of the nation, there is not one whom the Jesuits or other religious prepared for there epaulettes; none for whom they need blush. This does not mean to say that the Christian imprint which they have received guaranteed them against every fall, but they had at least acquired a delicate sense of honor which saved them from that villainy. The University has to admit that the informers belong to it; all were its pupils, and owe to it their moral and intellectual training. We do not wish to say that it is responsible for their wrong doing, or that it fashioned these informers, though the world would have said that of the religious schools if this brood came from them; we only perform an act of justice in ascribing to each one its own. At the reception given by Cornell University to its former President, Andrew D. White, the singular claim to glory was made that a member of Mr. White's class of '53, Dr. Whiton by name, had so translated a certain Greek word as to demonstrate that "eternal punishment is not endless.” “To have abolished death and hell," said the speaker, "is quite enough for any class." It certainly is when it could be done by a Greek word. DRAMA. The Music Master, which has been enjoying such a long run in New York the present season, is as far from a problem play as possible. It is most simple and even elemental, a straight plain story of the emotional kind. It has held public interest phenomenally, and has deserved its success. It is the story of a father, an old musician, in search of his wife and daughter in America. The wife is dead, but he finds the child. He finds her in affluence and luxury, and he would make the sacrifice of foregoing the supreme felicity of making himself known to his own flesh and blood to save her happiness, which he imagines would be wrecked by revealing her paternity in an old and poor musician. But she herself learns the secret and comes to her father. We have here paternal and filial love and heroism. The play is romantic in type. It is sane and wholesome, and the auditor is better for hearing it. It has no hint of a problem, because its lines are normally human; no fetid atmosphere exhaling from the hospital wards of insanity and eroticism. What a difference between The Music Master and Ibsen's latest play, When We Dead Shall Rise, which was given in several special matinee performances in New York this past month. The theme was in the usual Ibsen vein, a problem arising out of the circumstances of an uncongenial married couple with illicit affinities drawing them apart; the denouement, death or suicide; and the audience departs as if from a visit to the morgue. There could be nothing further from the sincerity of truth on the modern stage than Ibsenism, though indeed it is supposed to be the quintessence of reality. At the bottom of it all lies the buddhistic idea that existence is an evil. But between Ibsenism and Buddhism is this difference: Buddhism believes in a passive resistence and in this way a final extinction of life; Ibsenism inculcates an immediate and violent end by suicide. Mr. Bernard Shaw is enjoying a vogue in this country through Mr. Daly's successful efforts in staging the Brummagen Ibsen. New York is witnessing quite an extended run of You Never Can Tell. What the title means would be difficult to say. One might readily interpret it to signify that you never can tell what Mr. Shaw means, over which Mr. Shaw would no doubt chuckle, for he seems to enjoy nothing better than to be misunderstood. It is somehow akin to genius to be misunderstood, and Mr. Shaw is not backward in acclaiming himself. You Never Can Tell is a clever hodge-podge of the usual Shawisms, good, bad and indifferent. We might venture to surmise that the title applies to Gloria's final acceptance of Valentine. Howbeit, the play is a typical specimen of Mr. Shaw's view of the world in general and humanity in particular. He portrays it as mean, vulgar, foolish and selfish. For those who like this sort of barking, Mr. Shaw's plays are the thing. But those who believe that the cynic is not in possession of the philosopher's stone, and life is not solved in the acidity of Shawisms, will prefer the sobriety and wholesomeness of plays like The Music Master, where human nature is not dragged into the gutter as its native habitat. The Dramatic Society of St. Francis Xavier's College lately gave two representations of Telemachus, a miracle play in two acts. The play itself is from the pen of one of the college professors and the parts were taken by the students. Telemachus is first seen as an impetuous youth, whose mother and sister have been slain in the horrible massacre in Thessalonica by the Roman Emperor Theodosius, and whose Christian faith undergoes a severe ordeal in consequence. In the second part he is the Monk Telemachus, who goes to Rome to stop the gladiatorial combats in the arena at the sacrifice of his own life. The play was well rendered, and Mr. Malone as Telemachus showed marked histrionic ability. His description of the massacre of Thessalonica was conceived and rendered with unusual distinction and feeling. Mr. Dore's characterization of Glabrio-a cross between Falstaff and the Svobods of Sienkievitz-was very good, though at times a bit overdone, a fault which perhaps leans to virtue in such a delineation. In the play itself the sustained and intensely dramatic situation of the first act is so vivid and lasting that it somewhat overtops even the acute and critical final scenes. The two intermediate scenes, though making a suitable nexus between the first and last acts, do not, properly speaking, develop the theme in the sense of leading up to it. In this and the intensity of the first act lies a certain structural weakness, which would admit of remedy by proper remodelling. On the whole the play is of singular interest, especially when we consider that it does not possess that usually absorbing topic of interest in the drama, the sex contrast and relation. There is not a female character in it, and its theme is altogether spiritual. It is not a little difficult to construct a drama along such lines and create and sustain interest. CONDÉ B. PALLEN. PAGE Illustrations-Madonna- Our Lady of the Kiss (Domenico Morelli)-Dante Alighieri in the Orcagna Fresco (S. Maria Novella) -Mid-Summer Morning (Knut Borgh) -The Fir Bank (G. Kallstenius)--Landscape Painter J, Portrait (Emil Bishop Doane's Fancies about Marriage--Science and Ethics-Who Own the Churches in France?- Barrie's History of North America-The Comedy of Higher Criticism. Home News-Freedom of Worship in Massachusetts State Institutions-Missions, Past and Present --Catholic University-Progress of Federation-The Philippines- Alaska Under the Constitution-Chicago's New Mayor-Clergy and Hierarchy- Rome The Census of Rome--The Religion of the People-The Pope and the Preachers France-Reorganization of Military Orders-St. Patrick's Day in Rome-The Duke and Duchess of Connaught at the Vatican. Italy-Impossible Politics--Government Ownership of Railways. Germany--The End Justifies the Means-Hoensbroech vs. Dasbach-Appointment of a France Separation of Church and State-M. Briand's "Report"-Catholics and England-Enormous Naval Estimates--The Catholic Education Council-Irish London Ireland Remedy for Distress in the West--Irish Language Week in Dublin-The |