such a menacing vision of the polls of the future that the legislators did not dare pass it. No voter should forget that he has this power of protest. His letter to his representative stands not for himself merely, but for a block of public opinion, and as such it will be heeded.

The re

"OUR boys will undertake the capture of Havana even if they have to put torpedoes on the ends of logs and paddle themselves across the Florida Channel." Such was Admiral Porter's expression of confidence in the United States Navy in the excitement of 1874, following the Santiago massacre. mark was typical of the Admiral's own indomitable character. He never hesitated for lack of implements. If a thing had to be done, the means must be made, not waited for. This character made possible the brilliant seamanship by which he rendered so great services to the country and it raised him to the rank he held. Admiral Porter came of a race of sailors and from his great grandfather's time the family has been closely connected with American shipping and naval affairs. By his death the title Admiral which was created for Farragut is removed from the Navy. It was decided some years ago that no further vacancy in the rank should be filled.

"THE master of the infinitely little" is the name by which the famous French artist, Meissonier, who recently died, was known. Perfection in execution was his ambition. His artistic conscience was so keen that he spared no work to attain this end. When he was painting "1807" he bought a cornfield and hired a troop of cuirassiers to gallop over it, he himself riding at their side and noting the attitudes of men and horses. Then, and not until the field was in the right condition of corn ruined by cavalry, did Meissonier sit down before it to paint. In painting "1814" he sat before his easel for hours in the chill of winter days trying to reproduce the exact look of snow-covered fields and frosty atmosphere. While his work lacked imagination, grandeur, tenderness, its fidelity to truth was so marvelous that he easily became the king of the realistic school of French art.

THERE is no new idea afloat in America which is not put to test by the progressive at home. If a plan is good for the city, it is for the village. If it can be carried out in one

way it can in another. This conviction has led to some very interesting experiments on the Toynbee Hall plan. At Cambridge a university settlement has been established by Harvard students, which adapting itself to the limitations of the students is open in the evenings only. The two classes mingle freely. Lectures are given, discussions are conducted, and social intercourse is free. At Rockford, Ill., the young ladies of the seminary give two nights of each week to young girls in the factories, teaching them as they need and establishing cordial and helpful relations with them. Many educational institutions are so situated that such work could be carried on, and no instruction in philanthropy could compare with it.

THE Conservatism of the college and university is, perhaps, more rigid than that of any other institution in society. Its precedents are as sacred as the Constitution, and its courses are preserved with the tenacity of religious creeds. Signs of greater flexibility have not been wanting in various colleges of the country in the last few years. Harvard has shown an especially liberal spirit. One of its last acts is to allow a Japanese student to substitute his knowledge of Chinese and Japanese classics for the Latin and Greek which the entrance examinations require. This unusual proceeding speaks well for the common-sense of the faculty. So much mental quality, not so much Latin and Greek, is what the preliminary qualifications are supposed to mean, but faculties do not always remember this.

THIS number of THE CHAUTAUQUAN COntains the 3 645 names of the graduates from the C. L. S. C. Class of 1890. It brings the number of those having received diplomas from the organization to 25 571. This tremendous alumni, scattered over the whole world as it is, is in the main true to the principle on which Chautauqua is based, “Education ends only with life." Hundreds of these former C. L. S. C. readers are now engaged in the advance courses, in the College of Liberal Arts, or in independent study. They thus form a body of progressive thought and of growing culture which is of inestimable value to society at large. The best wish which THE CHAUTAUQUAN can give to the Class of '90 is that no member shall ever give up his love of knowledge and. his desire for higher culture.

number. These the leader gathers up and reads one by one, each couple writing an answer to the question read and affixing the proper number. The leader then collects the answers and reads each question and all its answers. general discussion ensues to decide upon the correct answer; and if necessary, the leader appeals to the questioners.

HUGH MILLER DAY—APRIL 14.

A

CHAUTAUQUA corner.

SUGGESTIONS TO SOLITARY READERS.

"I KNEW a man," said the Scribe, "who for twenty years always took the same route to his office. He might have reached it as quickly and as easily by at least a half dozen other routes, and thus have given a variety to his daily walk, but habit was too much for him. He plodded away over the same path, becoming daily more insensible to its attractions and ut

It was the necessity that made me a quarrier that taught terly unconscious of the interests within his me to be a geologist.-Hugh Miller.

The thought in forming the C. L. S. C. was to adapt it to the needs of the busy people, those who must educate themselves; this same thought makes it seem wise to suggest for the Hugh Miller Memorial Day a program that will strongly bring out the idea of self-education, the geologist standing as a representative type. 1. Hugh Miller's Teachers.

By far the best schools I ever attended are schools open to all; the best teachers I ever had (though severe in their discipline) always easy of access; and the special form at which I was, if I may say so, most successful as pupil, was a form to which I was drawn by a strong inclination but at which I had less assistance from my brother-men or even from books, than at any of the others.

2. Self-culture is possible in any Employment. There are few of the natural sciences that do not lie quite as open to the working-men of Britain and America as geology did to me.

3. Value of Curiosity to Self-culture.

Learn to make a right use of your eyes: the commonest things are worth looking at-even stones and weeds and the most familiar animals.

4. Contentment considered as a Vice.

I am not quite sure whether a content so general as

to be national may not, in certain circumstances, be

rather a vice than a virtue. It is certainly no virtue when it has the effect of arresting either individuals or peoples in the course of development; and is perilously allied to great suffering when the men who exemplify it are so thoroughly happy amid the mediocrities of the present that they fail to make provision for the contingencies of the future. 5. "The Grand Acquirement of life."

The art of holding converse with books. 6. The Intellectual Superiority of the Scholar over the Working-man is not so great as generally supposed.

I did not always find that general superiority on the side of the scholar, which the scholar himself took for granted. What he had specially studied, save in rare and exceptional circumstances, he knew better than the working-man; but while the student had been mastering his Greek and Latin and expatiating in natural philosophy and mathematics, the workingman, if of an inquiring mind, had been doing some thing else; and it is at least a fact that all the great readers of my acquaintance, the men most extensively

acquainted with English literature, were not the men who had received the classical education.

reach which he was missing.

"Your speech reminds me of him. You have a few phrases and adjectives which you never vary. This habit gives a common-place sound to your language which mars it seriously. I think you cannot realize how regularly you say of anything beautiful which you own, that it is a joy forever.' You have declared to me that to you the C. L. S. C. was 'a joy forever'; you have said the same of your piano, your new etching, your remembrances of your last summer's trip, and I know not how many more things. I presume it is true of all these possessions, but it would be more impressive if you told me so in another way. An expression, be it ever so fine, loses its force by frequent repetition, just as we grow indifferent to the features of the scenes which we constantly pass and repass.

"You offend repeatedly with your adjectives. All things are 'nice' or 'funny' or 'lovely' with you. You should discard all of these words as overworked and meaningless and introduce new adjectives each day into your vocabulary, taking care that you do not use the same one twice in succession. Remember that an adjective stands for an idea and that in selecting your word with discrimination you define your idea more distinctly.

"This bondage to expression and words is common enough and you will do not a little toward curing yourself if you will watch others and particularly observe the practice of writers. An experienced editor of a woman's journal complained to me not long ago that he was being irritated no little by having a large per cent of the articles submitted to him begin with Victor Hugo's expression, The sentence is a 'This is woman's age.' good one and true, but one does not care to find it at the opening of half the manuscripts he reads. "Things that are here and have come to stay,' and 'long felt wants,' are examples of constantly recurring expressions. Those who use them are too indolent or careless to avoid them; they do not recognize the povertystricken sound they give a sentence.

"In this same line is the habit of adopting

words which for the time are in style and using them constantly whether they apply or not. You remember how I labored to eliminate 'unique' from your conversation not long ago. You remember, too, how tired you got of hearing me talk about 'environments,' and how a year ago both of us struggled not to qualify all our adjectives by 'distinctly,' and you perhaps have noticed how just at present every thing is 'altogether charming' or 'altogether disagreeable,' or 'altogether ludicrous.' The word is a good one-in its place, but its place is not everywhere.

are to be adopted into a vocabulary and then to be used where they apply. They are not to be employed only because they are the style.' Avoid common-place expressions; never use an adjective which is not the best one in your list for the particular meaning you are striving to convey, and never use any word or phrase simply because it is in vogue.

"When you exercise this fine choice you put a polish, an edge on your speech which gives it force and brilliancy and which gives even.common ideas and experiences a sparkle and an attractiveness which much finer thought and more elevated feeling may lack if they are not de

"The vogue of certain words is as irrational as style in clothes or furniture usually is. Words scribed skillfully.”

C. L. S. C. NOTES AND WORD STUDIES.
ON REQUIRed readings for april.

"SHORT HISTORY OF THE CHURCH IN THE
UNITED STATES."

P. 84. "Parochial” [pa-rō'ki-al]. Of or belonging to a parish. See note on page 579 of the February number of this magazine. "Plenary." Entire, complete. Entire, complete. From the Latin adjective plenus, full, the verb being plere, to fill. Church councils are "provincial, national, or general, according as they are composed of the bishops of a province, a nation, or of all Christendom." National councils are also called plenary councils because in them all the bishops of the nation assemble under the archbishop.

P. 88. "Epictetus" [ep-ic-tē'tus]. A Roman Stoic philosopher who lived in the first century A. D. "His teachings are summed up in the formula 'Bear and forbear.'"

P. 89. "Worcester" [woos'ter']. P. 90. "Watervliet" [wa-ter-vlēt']. P. 91. "The Rappists" established themselves at Economy as a community holding goods in common.

P. 92. "The Book of Mormon." The work was so named from the last of the pretended line of Hebrew prophets who were said to have written the sixteen different books composing the Mormon bible. Mormon was the author of the last book in the collection, and the one who preserved and transmitted to his son the plates containing the writings of the whole collection. P. 94. "The Edmunds Law." This was passed in March 1882.

P. 101. "Subsidized." See note on "subsidies” in THE CHAUTAUQUAN for December, page 398. To subsidize is to purchase assist

ance (which may be rendered by simply keeping silence) by the payment of a sum of money, or by some other method to gain aid or cooperation.

P. 103. "George Peabody." (1795-1869.) An American philanthropist. Engaged in large mercantile pursuits in this country, he added to these cares in 1837 by establishing a banking house in London where he settled. Unusually successful in his business enterprises, he took delight in making princely gifts to various causes. "He was the most liberal philanthropist of modern times." The fund for the promotion of education in the South, which was only one in a long list of benefactions, reached the sum of $3,500,000.

"The Slater fund." In April 1882 John Fox Slater, an American manufacturer, placed in the hands of trustees $1,000,000, the interest of which was to go toward the education of the freedmen.

P. 106. "Secular." Worldly, opposed to ecclesiastical. It is derived from the Latin word for generation, age, the times, the spirit of the times or the world, sæculum; a specific meaning for which is century.

"Itinerant." See note on page 584 of THE CHAUTAUQUAN for February.

P. 109. "Polyglot." Greek polus, many, glotta, tongue, language. A polyglot population is one composed of different nationalities, one speaking many tongues.

P. III. "Catechism.” A form of instruction by questions and answers. The derivation of the word is interesting. Kätä in Greek means down, achos, a sound, a ringing in the

P. 63. "Shales." Rocks composed of clayey sediments consolidated in layers which can be split in the direction of the grain. The word "I-ren'ic-al." From the Greek word comes from the German schälen, to peel, to for peace, eirene. Promoting peace.

P. 57. "Dasya" [das'i-a]. "Grin-nel'li-a." word comes from the Latin, fodere, fossum, to “Cal-li-tham’ni-on.”

dig; hence in a broad sense it is applied to any substance dug from the earth, as fossil coal.

P. 68. "St. Cuthbert's beads." St. Cuth'bert was a Scotch monk who lived in the sixth Mi- century; he has been called the St. Patrick of