Politics in, 659.

VESILOVSKI, A. D., Russian historian, 104.

United States, New Minister to, (Ramon Pina Volcanic action, Effects of, on marine life, 604. y Millet), 406.

TERMS: $3.00 a year in advance; 25 cents a number. Foreign postage $1.00 a year additional. Subscribers may remit to us by post-office or express money orders, or by bank checks, drafts, or registered letters. Money in letters is at sender's risk. Renew as early as possible, in order to avoid a break in the receipt of the numbers. Bookdealers, Postmasters, and Newsdealers receive subscriptions. (Subscriptions to the English REVIEW OF REVIEWS, which is edited and published by Mr. W. T. Stead in London, may be sent to this office, and orders for single copies can also be filled, at the price of $2.50 for the yearly subscription, including postage, or 25

This spiritual father of more than two hundred millions is now in the seventy-second year of his age and the fourth of his pontificate. In these opening days of 1907, in three Latin countries and one Germanic, the supreme head of the Catholic Church, and the administrative machinery of his hierarchy, are facing grave problems of a political and economic, as well as spiritual, character, which may involve national and racial movements of great moment. On the 11th day of last month the French people formally consummated the separation of church and state. In Italy the temporal sovereignty of the Holy See was overthrown a generation ago. Even in Spain, hitherto the most faithful of Catholic countries, a Liberal ministry is now preparing legislation which seems likely to result in the near future in complete disestablishment. In the German Empire the ever-devoted Poles are struggling for the maintenance of their mother tongue in religious instruction in the schools and looking to Rome for support. These are some of the greatest of the problems of religion and statecraft before the venerable prelate of the Vatican. The world in general can hope nothing better than that he will be able to solve them with the diplomacy and statesmanlike success which distinguished the policies of his illustrious predecessor, Pope Leo XIII.

THE AMERICAN MONTHLY

REVIEW OF REVIEWS

VOL. XXXV.

NEW YORK, JANUARY, 1907.

THE PROGRESS OF THE WORLD.

A Promoter

Peace.

These pages one year ago opened of with the following sentence: "The year 1906 dawns upon a world in which peace once more predominates." Happily a year thus begun has ended with no serious breach of international relations. President Roosevelt, who had in 1905 been instrumental in bringing the war between Russia and Japan to an end, has recently been awarded, at the hands of the Norwegian authorities, the prize of $40,000, arising from the Nobel fund, which is conferred upon the person who has in the previous year rendered the greatest service to the cause of peace. Mr. Roosevelt announced last month that he would give the sum of money thus granted to him as the nucleus of a fund to be held by trustees at Washington and used for the advancement of the cause of industrial peace. One of the President's greatest achievements was the ending of the anthracite coal strike in 1902, and he proposes to use the Nobel prize for the promotion of industrial harmony in a general way and the conciliation of particular difficulties in moments of emergency. This is a work similar to that which has been carried on with a high degree of success by the National Civic Federation, of which Mr. Oscar Straus, who has now gone into the President's cabinet as Secretary of Commerce and Labor, is one of the ruling spirits. Doubtless some plan can be devised under which the Civic Federation and the trustees of the President's fund can work in harmony with one another for so desirable an end.

that subject a review of the labor situation.
for the past year, and Mr. Yarros's article
will be found elsewhere in the present num-
ber of the REVIEW, under the title: "A
Year's Activity of Labor Unionism." A
marked feature in the labor history of the
season has been the advance in the wages paid
to railway employees. On the one hand the
business of transportation has been so pros-
perous that railway earnings have much in-
creased. On the other hand there has been
a general advance in the cost of living; and
if this were not recognized in wage scales
there would have to be some decline in those
decent standards of life that American work-
ingmen have established for themselves, and
the maintenance of which is a principal rea-

COMMISSION

$ 40,000
ENDOWMENT

During the year 1906 there has,

Prosperity and upon the whole, been maintained Wages. in this country a very high degree of practical harmony between those two great productive factors, labor and capital. award of the Nobel peace prize.)

No. 1.

MR. ROOSEVELT TO NORWAY: "Delighted!!" (The

son for the organization of labor. Increases various gainful employments, there must be similar to those granted in railway em- developed such a system of education as to ployment are to be noted in a great num- add immensely to the efficiency of the child ber of other lines of industry and commerce. when, at a later age, he joins the army of the One of the President's recommendations last breadwinners. Let us repeat, then,. that the month was for an increase in the payment central fact in the school system is the teachof employees of the Government. In a coun- er, and that we cannot expect to have the try like ours, the growth of prosperity is right sort of teachers in the long run without bound to show itself in the advance of wages paying them enough to justify them in reand the increase in the payment of those garding their profession as a permanent callwhose services are rendered for salaries at fixed sums.

Teachers

It is very Are Not desirable Paid Enough. that this movement for better pay should everywhere be extended to teachers. Never have the schools of this country had so important a part to play in our civilization as at the present time, and nothing else is so important about the schools as the qualification and character of the teachers. Monthly or yearly rates of payment of teachers that seemed ample 15 or 20 years ago are quite insufficient now. This is true with respect to

children.)

the public schools, (A leader in the movement to protect American
and it also applies
to higher institutions,

where the salaries of professors ought to
be made sufficient to attract and hold a
superior class of men. The problem is a
very serious one, and it deserves careful
consideration throughout the country. If
there is one reason stronger than another
why the taxing power should lay a firmer
hand upon the growing wealth of great cor-
porations and upon the income of vast pri-
vate fortunes, it is because the state must
adequately perform its responsible task of
education. If there is to be compulsory at-
tendance of schools, there must be schools
worth the attending, and ample provision for
all the children. If there is to be extension
of child labor laws and better enforced ex-
clusion of children from factories, mines, and

ing rather than a temporary makeshift.

ment, that is to say, the organized effort to abolish the labor of children under conditions regard

ed as harmful,-has for some years past been making very steady advancement. Laws regulating subjects of this kind have to be preceded by an agitation which creates strong public conviction. In many of the States, Massachusetts being a type and a leader, the evil of employing children in manufacturing and commerce has been recognized, and good employers have been protected from the harmful competition

of bad employers by laws which keep small children out of the mills and protect older children from the demoralization of night work. But reforms of this kind at best proceed slowly, and even where laws can be passed it is hard to keep up their enforcement. A generation or two ago, men and women worked very long hours, and children had to work, too, in order to produce enough to support the workingman's family. The growth of capital and the employment of machinery have added so much to the efficiency of labor that long hours for adults are no longer necessary, and the industr employment of children under 14 can be entirely dispensed with. To what extent this evil prevails is a matter of sharp dispute.