and helped. He must use the advan- | tage of his high position as a means of lifting up those beneath him. He is bound to help the weak by as much as he is stronger than they. His debt to all men is limited only by his superiority to them. Paul saw the law when he wrote, "I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians, both to the wise and to the unwise."-M. J. Savage.

DEAN FARRAR says his reasons for taking the pledge were partly general and partly special: 1. I became convinced that the use of alcohol in any form was not a necessity. I saw that whole nations had lived and flourished without it. I believe that the whole race of man had existed for centuries previous to its discovery. 2. I was struck by the indisputable fact that in England 20,000 inhabitants of our prisons, accustomed to strong drink all their lives, and the majority of them brought into prison directly or indirectly by it, could be, and were, from the moment of their imprisonment, absolutely deprived of it, not only without loss, but with entire gain to their personal health. 3. I derived from the recorded testimony of our most eminent physicians that the use of alcohol is a subtle and manifold source of disease, even to thousands who use it in quantities conventionally deemed moderate; also, that all the young, and all the healthy, and all who eat well and sleep well, do not require it, and are better without it. 4. Then the carefully-drawn statistics of many insurance societies convinced me that total abstinence, so far from shortening life, distinctly and indisputably conduced to longevity. 5. Then I accumulated proof that drink is so far from being requisite to physical strength or intellectual force that many of our greatest athletes, from the day of Sampson onward, "whose drink was only of the crystal brook," have achieved without alcohol mightier feats than have ever been achieved with it.

THERE is plenty in life that is unpleasant and disagreeable, and we all have our sufferings and trials, but it is not healthy for the mind or body to dwell upon them or to emphasize their importance. They form a larger or smaller part of our existence, according to our way of looking at them. It is commonly said that no man or woman can be perfectly

happy in this world; for if all that was necessary to make one happy, fell to his or her lot, unhappiness would creep in through seeing the suffering and sorrow of others. This contains a world of wisdom in it, like many other proverbs and common sayings, and it emphasizes a quality of our nature that we cannot dispense with. Sympathy for and with others must always affect our lives, and the moments of our highest mental exaltations and triumphs must ever be tinged with the thought that others cannot share equally our supreme happiness.-Lutheran Observer.

WHAT is a baby? The prince of wails, an inhabitant of Lapland; the morning caller, noonday crawler, midnight brawler; the only precious possession that never excites envy; a key that opens the heart of all classes, the rich and poor alike, in all countries; a stranger with unspeakable cheek, that enters a house without a stitch on his back, and is received with open arms by every one.— London Tid-Bits.

QUOTING Henry Ward Beecher as saying that he could judge the character of any people by the condition of their graveyard, Mayor Low, in a recent talk on the public charities said that there is no better test of the civilization of a city than the care it takes of its weakest members. He declares that there has been a vast improvement in New York in this respect in the last quarter of a century. To day public sentiment demands for the children not schools only but also small parks, children's playgrounds, recreation piers, and playgrounds on the school buildings in the summer. These things show how importantly the city has advanced its standards during this interval in taking thought for its children. The Mayor says that the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, in revising the budget last spring, agreed unanimously upon these propositions, that when it came to increasing the budget and to issuing bonds, whatever else it did or did not do, it would do everything in its power, first, for the schools; second, for the sick, and, third, for the city's poor.

THE stress of national rivalries is probably too great for any language to have the universality that French once had in Europe. But if any tongue triumphs, it

is likely to be the English. When the Emperor of China telegraphed to the Mikado of Japan a message of sympathy for the death of a relative, he sent it in English, and the Mikado's reply was also in English. English is, no doubt, easier to telegraph than Chinese, but the selection of English instead of some other European language is significant.

EVEN in ordinary life the unselfish people are the happiest-those who work to make others happy and forget themselves. The dissatisfied people are those who are always seeking happiness for themselves, and on the wrong road.

THE Complete life is the best. The strongest man is he who can enjoy to the full, and without loss or hurt, every true pleasure and use to the uttermost every opening opportunity. The Master spoke some straight words about cutting off the right hand and plucking out the right eye, but to Him such expedients were hurtful, and never to be resorted to except in life's extreme. He took no pleasure in the maiming of life, and His desire was that men should enter into the full enjoyment of life's best things with two hands and two eyes. Hands were not made to be cut off, nor eyes to be plucked out, but every faculty was intended for its own exercise, and for it pleasure and opportunities were made to match. But life is an experiment for us all. Our business is to make the most of it, both in enjoyment and service.

WASTE OF NERVOUS FORCE.

THE

THE needless waste of nervous force, of which both men and women are guilty in the ordinary movements of daily life, are deplorable.

Do

Do you hold yourself on the chair or does the chair hold you? When you are subject to the laws of gravitation give up to them and feel their strength. not resist these laws, as a thousand and one of us do, when, instead of yielding gently and letting our bodies sink into a chair, we put our bodies rigidly on, and then hold them there, as if fearing the chair would break if we give our full weight to it. It is not only unnatural and unrestful, but most awkward. So in a railroad car. Much, indeed most, of the fatigue from a long journey by rail is

quite unnecessary, and comes from an unconscious, officious effort of trying to carry the train, instead of allowing the train to carry us, or of resisting the motion, instead of relaxing and yielding to it. There is a pleasant rhythm in the motion of the rapidly moving cars which is often restful rather than fatiguing, if we will only let go and abandon ourselves to it.

The same law is illustrated in driving. "I cannot drive, it tires me so," is a common complaint. Why does it tire you? Because, instead of yielding entirely and freely to the seat of the carriage first and then to its motion, you try to help the horses, or to hold yourself still while the carriage is moving. A man should become one with the carriage in driving as much as one with his horse in riding. Notice the condition in any place where there is excuse for some anxiety-while going sharply around a corner or nearing a railroad track. If your feet are not pressed forcibly against the floor of the carriage, the tension will be somewhere else. You are using nervous force to no earthly purpose and to great earthly loss. Where any tension is necessary to make things better, it will assert itself naturally and more truly as we learn to drop all useless and harmful tension. Take a patient suffering from nervous prostration for a long drive, and you will bring him back more nervously prostrated. Even the fresh air will not counteract the strain that comes from not knowing how to relax to the motion of the carriage.

A large amount of nervous energy is expended unnecessarily while waiting. If we are obliged to wait for any length of time, it does not hurry the minutes or bring that for which we wait to keep nervously strained with impatience, and it does use vital force, and so helps greatly toward "Americanitis." The strain which comes from an hour's nervous waiting, when simply to let yourself alone and keep still would answer much better, is often equal to a day's labor. It must be left to individuals to discover how this applies in their own especial cases, and it will be surprising to see not only how great and how common such strain is, but how comparatively easy it is to drop it. it. There are, of course, exceptional times and states when only constant trying and thoughtful watchfulness will bring any marked results.

We have taken a few examples where | there is nothing to do but keep quiet, body and brain, from what should be the absolute rest of sleep to the enforced rest of waiting. Just one word more in connection with waiting and driving. You must catch a certain train. Not having time to trust to your legs or the cars, you hastily take a cab. You will, in your anxiety, keep up exactly the same strain that you would have had in walking-as if you could help the carriage along, or as if reaching the station in time depended upon your keeping a rigid spine and tense muscles. You have hired the carriage to take you, and any activity on your part is quite unnecessary until you reach the station. Why not keep quiet and let the horses do the work and the driver attend to his business.

It would be easy to fill a small volume with examples of the way in which we are walking directly into nervous prostration-examples only of this one variety of disobedience, namely, of the laws of rest.

AS TO PRIVATE SCHOOLS.

HE effort of private schools to keep

THE

the public advised as to their existence and advantages is one of the striking features of the times. There have been those who have supposed that the improvement in the buildings and the additions to the course of study would annihilate the private schools, but this has not only not been done, but really has increased their number. There is not a town, not even a village of moderate size, but will sustain a private school if the teacher really understands the principle and practice of teaching. This mainly comes from one cause. Those who teach in the private schools must produce favorable personal impressions on the pupils; this re-stated means that the teacher must have a personal pleasure in the society of the pupil. It is an old proverb that "People are not apt to go where they are not wanted." This is especially true of children.

The head of an important "Teachers' Bureau" lately expressed his views concerning private schools:

"Yes, the private schools are very prosperous, and they are increasing in number. Some of the buildings just erected are really palatial; the fees are

increasing, too. There is a difference between public and private schools which is not easy to explain; it does not wholly come from the fact that the pupils pay or that the pupils are a picked class. I am inclined to think it lies in the teacher.

"I have found that a public school teacher does not succeed well in a private school and vice versa. I find that the principal of a private school hesitates to employ a teacher who has not been already in a private school. They are far more exacting than the public school officials. They often require letters from parents who have patronized them; they demand agreeable manners. I remember sending a fine scholar to the principal of a private school who wanted a competent man, and was surprised that he was not engaged. The reason given me was that 'His table manners were awful; he ate succotash with his knife.'

The

Again, I was consulted by a gentleman and his wife who had come from Ohio to place their daughter in a private school. I went with them to three private schools. At the third, we were ushered into a palatial parlor, and I saw it produced a strong impression. calm manners of the principal added to this, and the parents made no protest to the $1,000 named as the charge for board and tuition for one year. He remarked, as we passed down the steps: 'To be a year in the society and surroundings of that woman is worth what she charges.'

"I have had good teachers who failed in private schools, but who succeeded afterwards in public schools. Not every one can teach in a private school. I think the ideal is different. In most private schools the teacher receives the pupils in the morning and parts with them at night as one would with guests invited to a feast. It is not the case, as is often supposed, that the pupils do as they please in a private school. I visited a very popular young ladies' school in this city, and while walking through a recitation room with the principal, she saw some bits of paper on the floor. Who sat here?' she demanded of the teacher at the desk. Miss Blank,' was the reply. 'Send for her,' said the principal. The pupil who appeared was a handsomelydressed young lady of eighteen years. 'Is this your doing?' The pupil assented. Then pick them all up and put them in the waste-basket.' This being done we went on. I do not think a

stricter teacher than she ever existed in a public school.

"As I look at it, the ideal in a public school is scholarship; in a private school it is culture-which covers scholarship, manners and uprightness of conduct. The parents are taken much into consideration. A pupil is made to write a letter home weekly, and if this does not show improvement the teacher hears from it. So that he bears the pupil on his mind a great deal more than is the case in a public school."

A periodical of high standing says the private schools are recruited largely from the prosperous and most intelligent of our population; they have at their command the virtue of self-sacrifice on the part of teachers; the pupils bring in the atmosphere that is found in the best homes an atmosphere of industry and culture; the financial and social backing they have is an element of power; and, finally, the head of such a school and the assistants are not selected by a board of men elected by indifferent, perhaps ignorant people.-N. Y. School Journal.

AROUND THE WORLD BY RAIL.

A FEW not

mon to hear wise people deprecate what they called "the railroad-building craze." The earlier transcontinental roads had been successfully constructed, but it was uncertain whether they would be profitable. As for the multiplying short lines, many of them would certainly be abandoned. In 1835 there had been in existence only 1,600 miles of track; in 1890 there were 354,000 miles, and it was hard to see where new lines could be built. There was a limit to the world's need of railroads, and the limit had been reached.

The fact is that to day railroad building is in its infancy. Since the century began a line more than twice as long as any before existing-the Siberian Railroad-traversing the breadth of the largest continent in its most deserted and unknown part, has been opened. Yet this line, colossal as is its length, is destined to be only a link in a chain of railroads hung about the globe, and gathering the farthest regions into a vast system by which the traveler may pass overland the length and breadth of the earth.

The Cape-to-Cairo road is rapidly be

coming a fact. The Rhodesian lines stretch far up into the Dark Continent; the Zambesi has already been reached. A few weeks ago the completion of the Uganda branch was described in these columns. The track is creeping down from Egypt. Traffic is passing over 3,000 of the 6,000 miles of the route.

The Government of the Commonwealth is throwing a line across Australia from the cities in the south to Port Darwin in the extreme north. One-half of this road is in operation. For the construction of the remainder, which it is estimated will cost $25,000,000, the Government proposes to give a private corporation 79,000,000 acres of land. It is stipulated that the connection across the continent must be complete in eight years.

These columns pointed out some weeks ago the magnitude of the enterprise going forward under the patronage of the various Canadian Governments, which is pushing a new line across the far north of the American continent-from the eastern provinces, past Hudson's Bay, through Saskatchewan and Athabasca, to Alaska.

But the greatest of all is the PanAmerican Railroad, which will be the longest it is possible to build on earth, crossing both the temperate zones and both the tropics, and traversing eleven countries in its stretch from the cites of North America to Buenos Ayres. It cannot be said that this project is actually under way as a whole, but if Americans do not have a keen remembrance of how much has been done toward its realization, it is because the Isthmian Canal has been lately the immediate and overshadowing interest. It is altogether possible that parlor cars will be running the 10,000 miles from Philadelphia to Valparaiso and Montevideo before the way is open by canal the forty miles from Colon to Panama.

Mr.

Mr. Hinton Rowan Helper was the man who began the agitation for the PanAmerican Railroad. Mr. Blaine was enthusiastic in its behalf. thusiastic in its behalf. President Harrison recommended and secured an appropriation for a survey of the route. A. J. Cassatt was chairman of the commission under which the survey was made by three corps of engineers. The first Pan-American Congress had been interested by Mr. Blaine in the proposal, and the second Congress, which sat in 1901-2, made it a chief consideration.