impregnable. These political machines are already strong enough with their control of policemen, firemen, and other office-holders. If in addition to this they could control the thousands of men employed in the great public utility corporations, the political machines would have a power that could not be overthrown. I came to this country a believer in public ownership. What I have seen here, and I have studied the situation carefully, makes me realize that private ownership, under proper conditions, is far better for the citizens of American cities.

Immediately several newspapers, especially those of New York City which are opposed to municipal ownership, accepting these statements as the verdict of an expert upon conditions in America, expressed their satisfaction. Mr. Dalrymple has since denied the authenticity of the words put into his mouth. It still remains true, however, that these words express the views of certain influential opponents of municipal ownership. They constitute a plank in an anti-municipal ownership platform. Let us examine this plank and see how sound it is.

In the first place, it is obvious, on the face of it, that the objection is directed, not against municipal ownership, as it purports to be, but simply against municipal operation. The employment of men on the New York Subway, which is owned by the city, does not concern the city government at all. The city can own its public utilities without either building them or operating them itself; without, therefore, incurring the alleged danger involved in employing a great force of men. Granted that this danger is a real one, it is occasioned by municipal operation, not by municipal ownership.

The plank is thus reduced to a general proposition that the operation of public utilities by the city would involve an increase in the tyranny and corruption of political parties. This is tantamount to a confession that democratic government, in American cities at any rate, is a failure. For if employment by the city of conductors and motormen on a street railroad would necessarily result in enthroning an oppressive political machine, then the employment of policemen and firemen necessarily means now an equally unjustifiable grant of power to despotism and corruption. This same

In

logic which would preserve to private companies the administration of street railways would turn our police force over into the hands of private detective agencies, and make of our fire-engine department a private commercial enterprise. If American cities are not fit to employ men in the one capacity, they are not fit to employ men in the other. Americans, we believe, are not yet reduced to such a condition that they will make this confession. If American democracy is not a failure, then what Glasgow has done, New York or Boston or Chicago or any other American city can do. deed, Mr. Dalrymple is reported to have said this, and inasmuch as the report appears in the New York "Times "one of the strongest doubters of this form of democracy, if not of all forms— it may be assumed to be correct: "It has been done in Scotland," so the report reads, “and I am free to say that I believe the average American has just as much sense as the average Scotchman, if not a little more. If the American people want municipal ownership, they can have it. It would not be difficult to devise ways and means for making it possible."

Indeed, it is not a question of what democracy can or cannot do. Glasgow is just as democratic in government as New York. It is a question whether municipal operation gives better results than private operation; whether it is cheaper, cleaner, more efficient, more satisfactory; whether the money that now goes into the pockets of stockholders could be used for any larger public benefit. If the evidence favors municipal operation, then it is our business to see whether our political methods are suitable for undertaking it. This is clear: Municipal operation of public utilities is a business matter; it is not a matter for partisan politics. If it is shown that it is advantageous for a city to administer its own public business, then that city is presented with a very simple alternative either it must deprive itself of the benefits of municipal operation for the sake of retaining its bad politics, or it must rid itself of its bad politics for the sake of profiting by municipal operation.

On this issue of municipal owner

ship and operation of public utilities there are already forming two parties. The one party declares in effect: Our political methods are bad; therefore the public cannot transact public business. The other party, composed of men bearing varying party names, and many bearing none, is ready to affirm, and by its deeds to prove, this faith: The public is going to transact public business; therefore we will correct our political methods.

ing a great wave rolls in from the infinite and bears you out—you know not how nor whither. Far below the plane of conscious thinking and acting these secret passages open out into the vast, mysterious deeps whence life comes and to which life returns. We skirt the shores of these abysses with daring thought, with watching of signs and seasons, of the rising and setting of stars, with long and painful vigils of study; but how narrow are the limits of our knowledge, and how far off lie the ulti

Robert Browning, who had the highest good fortune in love, must be counted among its great interpreters. He saw it in its widest relations, in its deepest significance, in its highest reaches of joy and attainment. To him, as to Dante, Shakespeare, and the other masters of life and art, the secret of life lies deeper than the intellect, and has its seat in the soul. Below the action of the mind, consciously directed to ends consciously selected, there lie the deeps of being, out of which rise the great impulses, the master passions, the inspirations and enthusiasms which give life its color and movement. There the tides of life rise and fall as they flow from and return to the sea of being upon which all things float in sublime stability; for every life, as Emerson believed, is an inlet into the universal life; and while each man keeps his soul in eternal integrity, he is forever part of a spiritual unity which is the divine nature of things.

In quiet hours, when what is called inspiration breathes on a human spirit, and that spirit vibrates into a music unheard before, the finite and the infinite blend for a moment, and a fresh wave of life flows into the sphere of mortal striving and seeking. A poet whose genius was of the blithest and wittiest, but who knew, as all poets must, the touch of the mystery and pathos of living, once said, before a cheerful fire in the freedom of friendly talk, that he knew how he wrote verse, but not how he wrote poetry. Writing poetry, he added, is like wading into the sea. You are chilled and reluctant, and tempted to turn back; and while you stand hesitat

have climbed with painful steps! The wisest of the children of men must still say, with the most ignorant, "Thy sea is so vast and my ship is so small!"

It is this environing mystery that touches the commonest things with poetry and makes each inanimate object a point of departure for the imagination. "All poetry," wrote Ruskin, "is the problem of putting the infinite into the finite." As the boy in his wildest play has sudden intimations of the greatness of the tasks which await him in manhood and the inspiration which is to come with them, and feels his heart leap as if a bugle were sounded from some height in his future, so to the most unimaginative there come at times swift liftings of the veil, stirrings of wings in the air, mysterious hints and suggestions of worlds not realized; while to the imaginative and spiritually-minded all paths are haunted by unseen presences, and the solid earth seems but a film behind which moves the vaster reality of which it is part. That larger world lies so near that a child's hand often holds the door ajar for a moment. A shout of recognition, a cry of distress, the sudden breaking of light on a face when the soul is touched, the pressure of a hand, an unexpected glimpse of sky through the trees, the splendor of a star emerging from a cloud, a breath of sweetness from unseen flowers-how many and how various are the things and times that on the instant make us aware of the infinite which fills and enfolds the finite, and in the light of which alone all passions, relations, aims, and actions have their meaning and value! The final question touching any act, achievement, purpose, or passion

is, "How much of the infinite does it contain or suggest?"

Of this hidden wealth, this veiled splendor, love is the perpetual and con vincing witness, bearing its testimony where no records are kept and touching obscurities and forgotten places with the same pathos or beauty which it brings to the highest fortune and the greatest station. It is only heaven that is to be had for the asking, and it is love alone that comes to all who summon it by giving it. For the infinite is always striving to penetrate the finite and possess it, and love waits like a flood of light for the narrowest crevice through which it may enter. As the heat of the sun in the early summer searches the earth for the least potentiality of life hidden in its bosom and summons it forth to growth and fruition, so love enfolds the spirit of man, softly laying its invisible fingers on every door and window if by any means it may enter and possess the house. It is never a question of the coming of love, it is always a question of opening the door to receive it. It is

who calculates so nicely that mountain ranges are pierced with unerring accuracy and great bridges are swung in air so harmoniously with the laws of the universe that they respond to the changes of temperature like the strings of a violin.

But the truest of the prophets and the most real of the poets is the lover, who sees the possibilities of growth which are the signs of the infinite and discerns the beauty which is its garment. Love has walked the ways of life in a million forms and worn as many masks; but never yet has it departed without a revelation of its divinity, an exhibition of its power. It came once in the lowliest of guises, bore the heaviest burdens, carried the deepest griefs, was despised through ignorance, and rejected, pierced, nailed, smitten with bitter words and sacrilegious hands, tortured and buried. And, behold, the tomb was empty and an angel stood beside it! Love had passed the gate of death and gone forth again to serve, to cherish, to enlighten, to redeem !

ence of the infinite about us like an atmosphere which we do not see but without which we instantly perish; it is always and only a question of our capacity to see and to understand. Here lies the dividing line which separates the prophets and poets from those who toil without inspiration and who live without vision; those who know the hardness of the world, but are aware also of the splendor of the universe, from those who toil in the fields and have no glimpse of the horizon.

The prophets and poets are the true realists and masters of life; they only are the competent leaders and builders; other men are the artificers of their designs, the executors of their plans. The statesman always has something of the prophet and poet in him, for statesmanship is always a matter of vision: the grasp of the interests of a great nation in their entirety, and a forecasting of its fortunes in the light of eternal law. The man of scientific genius, who sets vast masses of fact in order and ascends from knowledge to truth, is both prophet and poet; and so is the great engineer

Princeton

A year ago the faculty of Princeton University put into operation a new plan of undergraduate studies. It was based on the principle that expert judgment has a place in education as well as in other matters. A group system was established instead of the free elective system which, in a modified form, had prevailed of late in the upper years. Princeton students are now obliged to make a coherent and progressive selection of studies. From all accounts the result has been highly satisfactory. It is, indeed, no small achievement to create in a body of American undergraduates a reasonable spirit of work and a profound sense of obedience. Within one year of the establishment of her new curriculum, Princeton again comes forward with an idea which attracts the attention of the educational world. At their meeting last week the Trustees formally adopted what has been called the tutorial system, worked out by Dr. Wilson, and in September fifty men will

have been added to the Princeton faculty with the title of preceptor” and with a peculiar and interesting day. Most of them have been already selected.

The general purpose of this step is not far to seck. It is obvices that when a college grows beyond two or three hundred members the ideal relation be tween professor and student becomes infrequent. There are honorable excep tions, but in most cases the lecture courses which almost fill the upper years are so large that oral tests are impossible and the professor's personal indyence is inconsiderable, while freshmen and sophomores are taught in divisions of from twenty to forty. The direct personal touch, through which alone, as by a sort of apostolic succession, the divine flame of learning leaps from one generation to another, never falls on the heads of most American undergraduates. They are educated by their classmates chiefly, in a slow, rude, wasteful manner, and by the good traditions of their universities, and by a faint effluence descending over vast lecture-rooms. Yet there are elements of culture in the atmosphere of large colleges. Evidently Princeton desires, through her preceptors, to combine the advantages of her ante-bellum compactness with those of her modern growth.

More specifically, what are these preceptors for? It seems that they are not to lecture, nor to hold classes, nor to conduct examinations, but to take students individually, or in very small homogeneous groups, and train them to work. The work of a course is not to be hearing lectures or preparing lessons, primarily. Apart from the experimental sciences, it is to consist rather in copious reading and preparing careful written reports on the matter read, with such help, in the way of stimulus and direction, as the lecturer may supply, the emphasis being laid on what is now so often slightingly outside reading." referred to as The point of approach is thus entirely changed. To expect collegians to enter the world of learning through this avenue without skillful guidance would be vain. The preceptors are to assist their judgee them personal encouragement, them steadily moving. Having ny disciplinary function, the

46

preceptors should be able to stand on a pleasant, man-to-man footing with their pupils. They have been chosen for their qualities as gentlemen, no less than for their standing as scholars. Personality will be all-important where the intercourse between teacher and pupil is so prolonged and intimate as it must henceforth be at Princeton. Supposing that each preceptor has no more than eighteen men assigned to him, he should be able, in three solid forenoons, to give about fortyfive minutes a week to every one of them, singly. Or, if they came in groups of three, he could meet every man three times a week. Even the ancient classics can be made to live if they are read copiously, with a good teacher, in a very small division. And in such subjects as history, economics, philosophy, and English literature, where original written reports on large quantities of reading are the essential feature of the course, the services of experienced advisers will be very useful. The gain for students of modern foreign languages will be, no doubt, very great. Regular class-room exercises, whether lectures or recitations, will go on as before, under professors and instructors, but will be somewhat reduced in number.

The preceptors will probably save many men from failure by showing them how to work and awakening unsuspected tastes and abilities. To the better class of students they will be an inspiration, guiding their choice of studies, carrying them beyond the mere curriculum, and establishing lifelong friendships. A feature of the new method will undoubtedly be the training in writing. In effect the preceptors in literature, history, philosophy, economics, politics, jurisprudence, and art will all be teachers of English composition.

Obviously, everything in this Princeton plan will depend upon the quality of the men chosen to execute it. Perhaps fifty men ideally fitted for such work cannot at once be found. President Wilson has made the new office as attract ive as possible by giving the preceptors a rank in the faculty and offering salaries that average somewhat higher than those of assistant professors in most colleges. If he succeeds in holding them up to a

worthy appreciation of their opportunity, a new stage in the higher education of America has been reached. No more radical movement has ever been made in an American university, and yet it is no experiment, but simply putting into practice the recognized truth that a good education is the most genuinely social process in life.

The Spectator

"I decline to make you any rash promises of winning," remarked the Spectator's host, as he ushered him into the saloon of his schooner yacht, "but whether we win or not, I think that we shall have a mighty fine sail." The Spectator thought so, too; three thousand miles of open sea offer certain possibilities in this direction; the fact that every mile of it would see the long, trim vessel driven to the limits of her strength and stability in the effort to sail homeward with the German Emperor's Cup promised even more. Logic and years of experience with ocean steamers told him that this light, small fabric of wood and steel was a fragile craft in which to brave the wrath of the Western Ocean, yet a giddy lack of equilibrium seemed incompatible with the neat, well-ordered saloon, the luxurious staterooms, and the stately dignity of the towering spars.

The Spectator went on deck, and viewed the finishing touches of the work of preparation. He regarded with interest the gleaming rigging, the extra spars lashed upon the snowy decks, the lifelines rigged out above the bulwarks. The yacht's handsome boats had disappeared, and in their place were six businesslike fisherman's dories, "nested" one inside the other, three on either side. The Spectator observed with furtive satisfaction that these were equipped with oars and sail, water and provisions. "If we should suddenly get tired of the schooner," observed his host, with a nod at the dories, "it won't take us long to get away from her. There has never been so much ice reported as this spring," he added, with apparent irrelevance, and it seemed to the Spectator

that as he spoke the temperature of the air dropped several degrees.

The start of the race was singularly impressive to the Spectator. Eleven vessels, of types all the way from a light racing yawl to a big, full-rigged auxiliary steel ship, were starting to race under even conditions from continent to continent. The big fellows lay somewhat inertly about the starting line; there was something imposing in their very lethargy. A damp, chill mist was drifting in from the eastward; the sea looked cold and gray and uninviting. A gun was fired from the committee boat, friends and well-wishers on accompanying tugs waved and shouted their farewells, and the big ocean racers slid off into the mist, and before long each was lost to the others. It seemed to the Spectator that they were very much alone; also that they were face to face with a considerable undertaking. To crawl in so small a vessel across the face of this great, mysterious, veiled ocean seemed sufficiently presumptuous; to crawl faster than the other ten parasites seemed profane. The wind freshened, gained weight, and the Spectator glanced aloft; the tall spars were straining, and wove swift figures through the mist. The deck beneath his feet was at an angle which defied even the purchase given by his corrugated rubber soles. The sea was rising, and the bulk of the vessel appeared in some way oddly diminished; in fact, the Spectator wondered that her smallness of size should have so escaped him. He went below; the floor of the saloon was at a giddying slant, and at intervals the whole place seemed to leap in a manner sadly inconsistent with its perfect orderliness. In one corner of the saloon a "gravity table" supported a water-pitcher and some glasses. of the glasses had been capsized, and as the eddying eyes of the Spectator fell upon it this glass began to roll up hill; moreover, the fluid spilled ran after it. This prodigy was disturbing to the Spectator, who retired in some confusion.

One

In the night he was aroused by a sickening crash, followed by a roar. He