of the faith and disinterestedness of the true reformer. Such is its general character, and when the causes which bring it into action disappear, the selfishness which is its essence creates a corresponding spirit of conservatism. There are none so jealous of the encroachments of the masses on what they consider privileges peculiar to themselves, as those who at no early day have risen from them. It is natural too for those who have never trod the rugged ways of want, nor held companionship with starvation-who have always dwelt in the midst of plenty -to be conservative. The aristocracy of England have always been the conservative party. Such characters as Wilberforce are exceedingingly rare. A fat income is a deadly foe to radicalism. There is small disposition to assail social evils in those who are

"Born in wealth and wealthily nursed,

Capp'd, papp'd, napp'd and lapp'd from the first

On the knees of Prodigality."

The reason of this is obvious. Men are strangely disposed to let well enough alone, when well enough means their own peculiar ease and comfort. Their vision is circumscribed by self, so that they literally cannot see the good of change.

There is another form of conservatism not unpleasing and which connects itself with the better feelings of our nature. It is that which is found in connection with old age. It is well known that the old bear ill a removal from or any change in a place where they have spent their lives and which is endeared to them by a thousand recollections of the past. They cannot endure the violation of any household deity. A feeling akin to this comes over them when any of their social or political Penates are overthrown. We often hear them mourn that things are not as they were. The old statesman who has grown gray in the service of his country looks with a pardonable pride on laws he has helped to establish and defends them with a pardonable chivalry from the assaults of him who would alter them. His Utopia lies in the past -in the fields of memory. Such conservatism is the natural result of long settled habits of thought and action and is opposed to the restless eagerness and enthusiasm of youth which render it peculiarly revolutionary.

Youth in general and especially students are not apt to be conservative. All that is brightest with us is connected with hope rather than memory.

"Life with us

Glows in the brain and dances in the arteries;
'Tis like the wine some joyous guest has quaffed,
That glads the heart and elevates the fancy"

We are full of ideals. We are in a transition state ourselves, think we are continually passing on to better, and predicate the same for the world. We have not yet acquired that selfishness, caution and coldness which experience and contact with the world almost invariably bring. And yet with all this we have a spice of conservatism. We cling to old customs often when age is the best argument we can offer for their continuance. And when our college public opinion will no longer tolerate them we seek to reform rather than abolish. This is as it should be. These customs are among the many links which bind our love to the whole history of our Alma Mater, and not merely to our own short fleeting quadrennial. Heaven forbid we should ever acquire that other spirit, heartless and narrow, which cannot, because it will not, see any brightness in the future-ever ready to defeat the hopes of men and strengthen the web of falsehood. Be ours the better hope, that sees in the future, good ever crowning the earnest labors of man, while as we toil our bards about us chant the songs of joy and promise

O yet we trust that some how good
Will be the final goal of ill,

Το pangs of nature sins of will,
Defects of doubt and taints of blood.

That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroyed,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete.

That not a worm is cloven in vain;
That not a moth with vain desire
Is shriveled in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another's gain.

The Palm.

O'ER-ARCHED by skies forever calm,
In beauty stands the pillared Palm.
It is the poet of the trees,
And oft its charming minstrelsies
Lap the sea girt Sicilian isle-
They float along the winding Nile-
On coral reefs emerged in foam-
By moon tipped minaret and dome.

C. S. K.

Where starry eyes at midnight gleam
In rose bound bowers by Tigris' stream;
And where the holy Ganges pours

A sluggish stream through shelving shores,
The Palm that shades Sicilian flowers,
And hears from far Palermo's towers
The throbbing vespers sweetly ring,
Is lonely then, and loves to sing,
Not of the rocks where syrens play,
Nor of that purple crescent bay,

Along whose shore a bright sea flows,

Where smoke wreathed, vague Vesuvius glows, Nor of the far Hesperides,

The isles of hope in western seas

A sadness shows through all its form,

And when the eastern wind blows warm

It swings its light leaves to and fro,
And sings a measure sad and low,
Of longings for a far off home,
That lies beyond the Cretan foam,—
A peaceful home in that calm land,
Where broken Memnons silent stand,-
Of sculptured tombs of ruined fanes
Of blank browed hills and sandy plains;
But he who sails the Nile may hear
The Palm's sweet anthem ringing clear.
It sings the young world's history,
And of the Sphynx's mystery,
The secret those eternal eyes
Read in the bending desert skies;
It sings the words that Memnon spoke
When first the tropic morning broke,—
The spells and all the magic power
That lurks within the lotos flower,-
Of springs by which the freighted trains
Rest in their march on burning plains,-
The white memorials of death,-
The purple simoon's poisoned breath,—
Of love and hate, of rest and strife
That fill the round of that wild life.

Oh the fair Palm tree, that sings and sighs,
When over the sea the swift wind flies,
Its heart is weary, its sad thoughts roam
Past the sunny isles and the broken foam,
To a far off land and a summer crowned home!

Oh the beautiful Palm! that singing waves,
By the river calm, and the silent graves,
It sings of the time when the sky was red
With a glorious dawn,-of a clear light spread
Over sea and shore, in the days that are dead.

Oh the clear voiced Palm that sweetly calls,
Singing its Psalms by the Persian walls;
It sings of a land of song and flowers,
Of bright eyes gleaming in moonlight bowers,
Of gold spread domes and shining towers!

I. R.

YALE LITERARY PRIZE ESSAY.

The American Statesman.

BY LUTHER M. JONES, MARLBOROUGH, N. H.

THE Crowning glory of an earnest life is to have worked for a noble object. To study well, to aim well, to labor well, are tests of greatness that consecrate genius, talents and ambition to high services, and prove the claims of a genuine manhood. The superficial worldly man lives easily and has only a business, the thoughtful earnest man lives intensely and has a calling. The idea of a calling contains a grand truth. It gives meaning to the commonest affairs of life. The humblest toil is glorious service performed in obedience to the voice of duty. It exalts the work of life to a mission; tempers action with enthusiasm ; precludes accident, apathy and recklessness, and urges the whole man right on to diligence in well doing and devotion to noble purposes. The fields of creation are boundless, and the pursuits of life manifold, but an earnest devotion to a worthy calling is always and everywhere the stamp of a soul loyal to its high instincts.

The calling of the statesmen has never been justly recognized. Especially is this true in our own country, where it is not regarded even as forming a distinct profession, nor requiring ability and training peculiarly its own. False notions and ill formed ideas regarding it have ottained so widely, that its importance is lost sight of among the evils which rise from its abuse. Statesmanship itself is become a by-word, a synonym for political tricks, a euphemism for rascality. It is looked upon as something that hangs loosely about the profession of law. Men

whose innocence is stagnant, and whose ignorance and weakness are amiable, decry politics as despicable and mourn over wickedness in high places; but, ending with lamentations, never propose any legitimate and practicable reform. It may be doubtful whether any particular method of education would make better statesmen than the present system of chance; but this is certain, that studies the most various and liberal, discipline which shall give him the most complete command of resources, and that cultivation of the heart which makes him jealous for liberty and truth, are indispensable in the training of the true statesman. The ignorant man will blunder, the weak man fail, the unprincipled man prove a villain. Yet so deep and extended is the prejudice against political pursuits, that any young man who should study with the avowed purpose of fitting himself for political life, and devote his time, talents and the impulses of a noble and patriotic soul to the attainment of a place in the councils of his country, would be met as a cool schemer; his ambition be stigmatized as selfish and dangerous, and himself be regarded with distrust and detraction. Not that such studies are censurable, for they are necessary to a proper understanding of national jurisprudence; but simply because the man has an object in view, and is supposed to calculate on popular favor to place him in a position to accomplish it. Should the openings of political life ever become narrower and more difficult than they are now, we might have a class of thoroughly bred statesmen. But so long as honest efforts to be efficient and capable men in political life are met, at the outset, with reprehension, as crafty scheming and profound insidiousness, men will wait until the duties of statesmen are actually resting upon them before making preparation for their right discharge. Let statesmanship be made a study, a calling, whether popular favor bestow office and station or not. He who loves his country is a patriot; he who is wise for his country is a statesman.

Universally the statesman does much to shape the character of his country, but especially is this true of the republican statesman. As a piece of complicated machinery is more difficult to understand and manage than that which is simpler, so in government, when system has grown upon system, when laws, treaties, precedents, ranks and classes have multiplied for centuries, then political machinery becomes a stupendous piece of mechanism, whose intricacies perplex and defy the most sagacious; and it is vain to think of thoroughly controlling a power the nature and extent of which are imperfectly comprehended or in the main mistaken. The idea of complexity in a practical system