instead of for but one or two. Seventy-five years ago the average college period was in the years from fifteen to nineteen; to-day it is in the years from eighteen to twentytwo. Before me lies the collegiate record of a single New England family. Its progenitor came to Boston in 1639. His son graduated at Harvard in 1662, aged nineteen; the grandson graduated at Harvard in 1701, at nineteen; the great-grandson graduated at Yale in 1756, at twenty; the great-great-grandson graduated at Yale in 1790, at nineteen; and the son of the last named graduated at Yale in 1820, at nineteen. The uniformity in age is not exceptional; it represents the general practice of the time. But the next two generations illustrate a new practice. The son of the man who graduated in 1820, at nineteen, himself graduated in 1869, at twenty-two; and the latest representative of this particular family will graduate at twentytwo next year. Here again the fact is not exceptional. The average age of the graduating classes of the ten leading colleges this year is over twenty-two years. The college period has entirely changed. Youths of eighteen to twentytwo, not boys of fifteen to nineteen, are now in colleges.

And they are in the colleges to be trained in more than one direction. The modern college undertakes to develop the student in directions not within the plan of training of the earlier methods. The physical side, for example, is cared for. The college president of fifty years ago expected that a considerable proportion of his students would gain intellectual and moral power at the expense, partial or total, of the physical organization. In 1839 a professor, in his inaugural address at the same college which has served us as a text, says: "The plans which have been devised to secure the health of studious young men have generally failed. The subject of physical education has been and still is strangely neglected in this country, in every class of society; but the defects of this neglect are oftenest seen in our educated young men. Many of these, even before their study is completed, are so enfeebled as to be unfitted for enjoyment or usefulness; many find a premature grave just as they are entering on active life; many more have paralyzed physical and intellectual powers as the melancholy result of excessive or injudicious application. The efforts that have been made to prevent such evils have been attended with only partial success, and it would seem that nothing but bitter experience can induce the young to avoid the causes which produce them." The hopeless professor told the truth for his day. But a new day has certainly come. Physical education is now a regular part of every college curriculum, and the gymnasium dominates the campus. It is certainly not physical education which is neglected in our colleges to-day.

For

In fact, nothing which is demanded is neglected. the whole paternal idea of collegiate intellectual discipline, prescribing specific, limited, and unvarying studies, has passed, with the raising of the average entrance age from fifteen to eighteen. College discipline was paternalism pure and simple in 1838. "What are the studies," continued the professor just quoted, "required for a thorough education? Briefly stated, they are Greek, Latin, mathematics, the philosophy of the human mind, logic, rhetoric, and practical moral and religious instruction. Reading should be sparingly pursued, except in connection with the course. of study. He who reads much at an early stage of education, like the youthful traveler, will indeed find much to gratify his curiosity, but, not having learned to apply the principles of philosophy and taste, he will derive little practical improvement." Certainly, this is the voice of an earlier, not of a present, college day. For the whole conception has broadened. The college question is not now, What minimum list of "Studies Required for a Liberal Education can be drawn up? It is rather, How wide an educational tender can this college make? The college of to-day fits for any occupation, and offers the broadest possible opportunity. Of the three local institutions, mentioned earlier in the article as having a moderate number of undergraduate students, New York University offers 162 strictly undergraduate courses, Johns Hopkins quite as many, Columbia somewhat more. Nihil a me alienum puto is the doctrine of the modern college, and this, as compared with

the college doctrine of fifty years ago, implies a change so great as to be virtually a revolution.

66

That all these changes are for the better will not be everywhere agreed, but they are certainly in the line of an evolution. The general tendencies seem to be toward the disappearance of the college cloister life as a separate and peculiar influence, and to be toward the uniting of the college opportunity with the other influences of education. The progress of time has broadened the view of both professor and student. The attitude is no longer the intensely personal-the, collegiately speaking, provincial-attitude of half a century ago. In 1838 the newly appointed professor of English literature in our before-quoted college has his opportunity to give an inaugural lecture, and here is what he has to say concerning English poetry and English fiction, and concerning his own mission as instructor: But, while our language is distinguished by such excellences, and while it abounds in writers who, in various respects, possess such high merits, and who have done so much honor to their country and their race, the student needs, and urgently too, directions and cautions in his perusal of our prominent and standard authors. Of English essayists, I am acquainted with none, unless at times Johnson forms a noble exception, whose pages are not fraught with sentiments and a spirit decidedly opposed to the Gospel of Christ. The whole current of thought which is pursued in them, and the entire impression which they are adapted to create, is undeniably unevangelical. Among the poets of high and established reputation, with the exception of Milton, who possesses a peculiar character and occupies a peculiar station, but two, Young and Cowper, give prominence to the distinguishing truths of Christianity, breathe in their writings a strictly Christian spirit, and urge the performance of purely Christian duties. The mass pander to the evil passions and to the licentious inclinations of men; and slight would be the danger to the Christian principles, and to the purity of mind and the moral habits of the young, from all which heathen 'minstrels ever said or sung' compared with the mischievous influence which those who have written in our own language are fitted to exert, beginning no farther back than Dryden, whose poverty and profligacy led him, regardless of decency and conscience, to minister to the vices of a most dissolute age, and coming down to the debauched and reprobate Byron, whose works are suited to prepare men to think and feel like fiends, and, with the brute, to wallow in the sty. Of the works of fiction, the mass are the merest trash, fit only to be allowed to pass unimpeded to that oblivion to which they are so soon destined. They are all alike calculated to produce, in a greater or less degree, an intoxication of mind disqualifying for vigorous effort and high improvement, as well as unfitting for the serious and more important duties and for the severer trials of life. To examine these different classes of writings and to exhibit the peculiar traits, as it regards their excellences and defects, of prominent works in each, and to furnish, as far as may be practicable, security to the youthful mind against adopting erroneous views, and imbibing an unchristian spirit, and being seduced from truth and duty, from happiness and heaven, must be an object of high and inestimable value." Certainly these would be strange utterances for a professor of English literature to make to-day. Yet just this type of complacent and omniscient professor used to be common in our colleges. He has disappeared, and his disappearance is significant.

Significant also is the lessening of the importance of the individual graduate at commencement. He used to deliver an oration, to receive flowers, applause, congratulations, to be considered a completed and important example of learning. Now, in the midst of a crowd of classmates, he silently takes his degree, and passes almost unnoticed to join the ranks of the workers in the world.

The student, the professor, the college, all are becoming parts of a system of education rather than important separate forces. It is only when we look at the progress of education as a whole that we can rightly estimate the significance of the changes in a separate factor, such as is the college.

Books and Authors

Marcou's Life of Agassiz1

The reading public will take much interest in the perusal of this new Life of Agassiz. While it is a work largely in the interests of science, describing fully for the first time the achievements of one who left an abiding impress on the scientific progress of this age, it is also a life of a man who in a very recent past was widely known and admired, and whose wonderful personality will long be remembered.

Mr. Marcou was Agassiz's friend for thirty years, and is the last survivor among the naturalists who came to America with him. These facts incline one to a favorable prejudgment of his work; and, indeed, he has written a genuine biography-no eulogy nor panegyric; full of admiration for his subject, yet keeping truth constantly in view, not ignoring the failings of the man nor the errors of the naturalist. He has also skillfully interwoven accounts of many of Agassiz's contemporaries in science, or of such of his assistants or students as have become eminent; and a full bibliography much increases the worth of his volumes.

Agassiz's earliest researches in natural history were in the province of ichthyology; and herein he became well known, even while a student at Munich, for his work (in continuation of Spix's) on the fishes of Brazil. Later, his "Poissons Fossiles," in spite of its artificial classification, greatly heightened his reputation. The marked achievement, however, of his scientific career at Neuchâtel, where he was a professor for fourteen years, was his advocacy of the glacial theory. To De Charpentier is due the credit of the discovery of this theory; but Agassiz, who was at first strongly opposed to it, became, from observation, wherein he always excelled as a naturalist, its advocate and ablest defender-also greatly widening the range of its application, till it developed into his teaching in reference to the ice age. The famous "Discours d'ouverture" at Neuchâtel on this subject, given here in full in French as it was delivered, is called by his biographer "the climax of his scientific life as far as originality of research is concerned;" and although it must be owned that he here gave too much rein to his imagination, yet it is also true that from this time on his solid teaching concerning glacial action came to be more and more accepted; and, if we can trust Mr. Marcou's authority, his advocacy "advanced fully thirty years the recognition of the glacial theory, and he, and he alone, established the great Ice Age.""

Agassiz came to this country in 1846, at the age of thirtynine; and here he spent the rest of his life-the portion richest in fruitful results, if not in scientific activity. Most of this time he held a professorship in the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard University. His career in America is marked by the establishment of the well-known Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cambridge, and by the wide popularization of science which he effected throughout this country.

The Museum was one of the eager dreams of Agassiz's life, and one which he lived to see nearly approach realization. The history of the inception and growth of this enterprise is told by Mr. Marcou with his usual accuracy and fullness. Agassiz obtained for this object during the last fourteen years of his life the immense sum of $700,000-"the success entirely personal, and due wholly to his power of persuasion;" he lived to see the Museum in a position of intimate relations with the first museums of Europe; while as a center of original research and as an educational institution, the best proof of what it accomplished even during his life is found in the record which these volumes furnish of students there trained under his direction. The remarkable popularizing of science which Agassiz effected among us was due chiefly to his ability as a lecturer. He was a born teacher, and this was one of his methods. From those first lectures of his at the Lowell Institute, onward and outward spread the circle of his influence; the élite and the common people crowded to hear him and hung upon his words, while his popularity grew at a rate that astonished himself.

As

a speaker, the power of his personality appeared; and yet Mr. Marcou points out that, as he became increasingly sensitive to applause (even courting it and waiting for it), the lecture was "too theatrical" to be his best method of teaching, which he claims was in describing and explaining specimens, with a few students about him, where he had no thought of effect and showed himself "a wonderful and rare naturalist and incomparable teacher."

The most important contribution which Agassiz made to natural history during his life in America was his " Essay on Classification." This was issued as the introduction to what

Life, Letters. and Works of Louis Agassiz. By Jules Marcou. Macmillan & Co., New York. 2 Vols. $4.

was to be a great work, in ten costly volumes, upon the Natural History of the United States; but, like so many other of his schemes, it was begun but not completed, for only four volumes ever appeared. He meant it to be also a popular work, like his lectures; but he failed; very few could follow what he made so profound and philosophical. Even the "Essay on Classification his biographer shows came at an inopportune time for influencing his contemporaries. It was in the very next year (1859) that Darwin's "Origin of Species" appeared, and deeply impressed the scientific world. Agassiz at once took decided ground against Darwin. Following Cuvier, he did not believe in the descent of species. He claimed that he was not the foe of evolution or of development, but only "averse to drawing too hasty conclusions" unwarranted by facts; and to the end of his life he characterized the transmutation theory as "a scientific mistake, untrue in facts, unscientific in method, and mischievous in tendency." In the commotion which Darwin's book caused Agassiz stood almost alone, even his pupils in a body turning against him; and the bitter controversy which ensued separated him from some who had been his chief friends. If his attitude towards this question left him on what appeared to be the losing side, his biographer is surely right in claiming that he no less declared himself the true savant who would not give up his facts-which reminds one of those striking words nearly at the close of his life, "A physical fact is as sacred as a moral principle;" and as for his present and future fame, it is to be remembered that this question is still open. In the chapter which records this controversy Mr. Marcou makes it quite evident where his own sympathy lies. It is the only portion of his work tinged by strong partisanship.

acter.

Agassiz possessed a charm of personality which can hardly head, searching eyes, were the signs of an unusually active mind be described. His large frame, magnificent head, high foreand emotions intense and easily moved. He was brilliant in conversation, and of manners most winning; he was generally happy and good-natured, as he was kind and generous; and his friends were more and more drawn to love him. Yet, attractive, even fascinating, as he was, this "leader of men and above all a charmer" is said never to have been a good judge of charVain of applause and open to flattery, he was imposed upon by pretenders. He was of an eminently social nature-he must live surrounded by students or admirers yet he was no manager of men; he must persuade or he could not control; he was continually in difficulty with his assistants; sometimes, as in the case of his secretary, Desor, they tried to take advantage of him, but more often it was his inconsistency or lack of tacttoo familiar where he should have held his dignity, or giving reasons where he should have given orders-which made trouble and led to serious dissensions and separations. In money matters he was utterly unbusinesslike, always in debt from some visionary scheme or other; and yet his biographer's claim is just, that his Museum proves he must have had in him "something sternly practical mingled with his habitual idealism;" and

he well calls him "at the same time a dreamer and a man of action."

In spite of his home influences, Agassiz became in early manhood a skeptic; but afterwards he gradually came to believe in a Divine Creator; and Mrs. Agassiz says, in her life of him, that this belief was the keynote of his study of nature. He was liberal towards all religious convictions; if he showed any sympathy, it was with Unitarians; he hated form, disliked theology, and would not talk about it. At heart he may have been a gentle Deist; or that "silent prayer" at Penikese, about which Whittier wrote a poem, may reveal the simple Quaker. He gave no clue at the last, so far as his friends declare. He raised himself in bed, and, exclaiming, "Le jeu est fini," he fell back

and died.

In Richard Le Gallienne's Retrospective Reviews: A Literary Log (2 vols., Dodd, Mead & Co., New York), the trait that attracts one's attention first, while reading these reviews, is that the critic displays an appearance of having read the books that he criticises! Often he picks out small flaws that a mere cursory glance could not detect. For instance, he grieves sorely at Mr. Pater's over-nice alterations in the second edition of "Marius the Epicurean." Like other men of his genus criticum, Mr. Le Gallienne is out on a quest, in these latter days of rampant industrialism. Browning is dead, and Tennyson is dead, and Swinburne is twanging his harp to the same unchanging tune, pretty, but a little trite. Where shall we find a new poet? Mr. Le Gallienne and the rest of the critics continue to manipulate their search-lights. As a postscript to his whimsical preface, Mr. Le Gallienne utters this mature conviction: "William Watson, John Davidson, Francis Thompson, and W. B. Yeats are the greatest poets since Algernon Charles Swinburne, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris, George Meredith, and Coventry Patmore, long since classic-a classic, by the way, being an old book which continues to be read by young men." Ah, Mr. Le Gallienne! how could you say this after gushing over Lord de Tab

ley! Possibly because the review is retrospective! It is commonly known that the book reviewer is omniscient. Mr. Le Gallienne's omniscience does not reveal itself too obtrusively in these volumes, for he restricts his reviews to what has been somewhat arbitrarily denominated "pure literature." He makes observations only upon poetry, essays, the drama, and novels. His remarks are often penetrating and just. Much as he admires Browning and Meredith, he points out as the fault of their later work that they came in the end to see, not realities, but the image of realities. They might be said to discourse in a style of ultimate inference; at any rate, of Mr. Meredith this is the case. If Mr. Le Gallienne has any weakness as a "book-taster," to use Carlyle's rude phrase, it is that he finds almost everything "very good." Perhaps sometimes he writes an adverse criticism. If so, he has here suppressed it. His canon of criticism," that the critic is still a gentleman though anonymous," throws light upon this peculiarity. No one need gird at Mr. Le Gallienne; he writes good English, and says ingenious things, many of which are true.

It is a great pleasure, at a time when so much strain, stress, and morbid emotion impose themselves upon the readers of verse, to come upon a volume so sound in its feeling, so delicate in its perceptions, so refined in its expression, so thoroughly wholesome in its view of life, as Miss Sophie Jewett's Pilgrim and Other Poems. Miss Jewett has been known for a number of years to magazine readers under the pseudonym of Ellen Burroughs, and there have gathered about this name those associations which are created by good work. In this little volume Miss Jewett has collected her scattered verses, and thus affords her readers an opportunity of measuring her proggress, and of arriving at some estimate of her quality. She does not attempt many forms, but she discloses thorough knowledge of the forms she uses; among them the sonnet, the rondeau, a group of poems in various meters which she calls "other lyrics," and a very delicate and finished group of songs. Miss Jewett has a trained literary conscience. One who reads her sympathetically feels that she is likely to write too little rather than too much; to be held back from a complete expression of herself by distrust of her power rather than stimulated to over-expression by too great confidence. Delicacy of feeling and of expression are qualities which lie on the very face of her work. She is possessed with the aspiration which seems to lift so many American women to the highest plane of aim and action, and she has the stimulus of a faith which, while never obtrusive and very sensitive to opposing currents, still holds itself steadfast through the shadows which lie upon it or pass over it. Feeling so delicate and workmanship so conscientious are always prophetic of better things to come, and if one notes here and there a phrase where the poetic thought runs over shallows, the reader is also impressed with the conviction that the writer of these verses needs but the enrichment of life to supply qualities which are not lacking in her work, but which have not yet come to their full development. (The Macmillan Company, New York.)

Controversy is the soul of ecclesiastical history. Every one makes theological claims that some one else is in a hurry to deny, and of the making of polemical books there is no end. To the papal claims has been accorded undue importance, for claims of supremacy and claims of authority in reality negate themselves, because when the fact exists there is no necessity to make any claim. Claims always begin to be made after the reality has evaporated. This is eminently the case with the claims of the See of Rome. Yet it is thought that by an iteration of these assertions of precedence and intellectual infallibility, the fact will again be materialized. Perhaps! Yet there are many who believe that the world does not move backward, and that the social and mental status of the Middle Ages can never be reproduced by a Pusey or a Pugin. The Rev. Mr. Rivington was a Cowley Father," and then became from an Anglo-Catholic a Roman Catholic. Consequent upon this he wrote a book called "The Primitive Church and the See of Peter," a work intended to prove that one could not get to heaven if he did not admit that the Pope of Rome had the sole right to tell him what to believe and to do, and that, without some force emanating from this Pope, the sacrament ordained by Christ were empty of grace. In reply to this Dr. William Bright, Professor of Ecclesiastical History in the University of Cambridge, wrote various articles now collected into one volume, The Roman See in the Early Church, and Other Studies in Church History. Dr. Bright triturates Mr. Rivington exceeding fine, and then piles upon the "ex-Cowley father" an Ossa upon a Pelion of erudition. The "Other Studies" also in reality bear upon the question of the position of the Roman See in history. Dr. Bright is an authority in the realm of Church history. (Longmans, Green & Co., New York.)

New Books

[The books mentioned under this head and under that of Books Received include all received by The Outlook during the week ending July 10. This weekly report of current literature will be supplemented by fuller reviews' of the more important works.]

To the new translation of Balzac the Macmillan Company have added Pierrette and The Abbé Birotteau, both translated by Clara Bell, whose admirable work in this department is coming to be very widely recognized. Mr. Saintsbury furnishes a preface.

It would not be easy to find a more charming combination of material, title, manner, and dress than are found in Mrs. Julia C. R. Dorr's sketches of travel in England, published by the Macmillan Company, under the title A Cathedral Pilgrimage-a dainty volume which takes its readers into some of the quietest and loveliest localities in England, into the heart of its richest history, and into the presence of its

noblest architecture. Mrs. Dorr is a very agreeable writer, who knows her own quality, and neither endeavors to strain it nor to break away from it.

The very interesting chapters in The Early Life of Abraham Lincoln, prepared by Miss Ida M. Tarbell, which have appeared in the pages of "McClure's Magazine," have now been issued in book form, with one hundred and sixty illustrations, including twenty portraits of Lincoln. The chapters, as they have appeared from month to month, have been so widely read that most readers are already familiar with the writer's method, with the results she has obtained from fresh investigations, and with the genuine human interest of her narrative. This is, in the truest sense, a popular life of Lincoln. No other account of one of the greatest of Americans has set him so distinctly in his early surroundings, or has shown him so intimately in his early associations. This volume covers that period of Mr. Lincoln's life which has been most obscure, and throws new light upon it. It will have further attention when the work is completed. (S. S. McClure, New York.)

David Lyall's Heather from the Brae is a volume of short stories, or character studies, dealing with Scottish life. They are true to nature, simple, and of a strong religious tendency; they lack incident and humor. (The Revell Company, New York.)- Ginette's Happiness, by "Gyp," is not as sprightly as most of this witty French lady's novels. (R. F. Fenno & Co., New York.) From the same publishers comes Frank Frankfort Moore's Daireen, a fin de siècle love story of a languid kind, but with some clever bits of Irish character-drawing. A collection of short stories, written with a purpose, by Sarah Warner Brooks, is entitled My Fire Opal. (Estes & Lauriat, Boston.) The writer is interested in the prison reform movement.

Sir John Lubbock has a capital subject, one which no one could treat better, in The Scenery of Switzerland, and the Causes to which it is Due. No one can have enjoyed the mountains, lakes, and rivers of this wonderful country without having had a desire to know what stupendous natural forces underlie its physical geography. That a book like this has not been written before is remarkable. It is essentially a geological treatise, but is not too technical to be easily understood, and is clearly and profusely illustrated. (The Macmillan Company, New York.)

Adoniram Judson Gordon, a biography by his son, Ernest B. Gordon, is an admirable life of an admirable man. Dr. Gordon's son has inherited his father's spirit, and the book is full of filial love for all that his father stood for. This love, however, shows its strength, not in expression, but rather in repression-the son apparently feeling the needlessness of eulogy. (Fleming H. Revell Company, New York.) The Secretary of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, Robert E. Speer, has written a careful study of Christ as a man, under the title of Studies of the Man Christ Jesus. (The F. H. Revell Company, New York.)

The literature of child study is becoming voluminous. As the subject of child study progresses, it is seen that there are two methods of gathering facts: one, the collection of those facts which support the student's theories; the other, the collection of facts for the purposes of study. This latter method is the one that helps mothers best, for what most mothers need is the widening of their field of observation. Child Observations is a collection of facts made by the students of the State Normal School at Worcester, Mass. It has a valuable introduction on child study, what it is, and how to study the child, by the principal of the school, E. H. Russell. The work of the students is edited by Miss Ellen Haskell. (D. C. Heath & Co., Boston.) This book is valuable for mothers; it introduces us to the resemblances and the differences between children, and compels us to see that much that seems remarkable in individual children is remarkable only because the common facts of childhood are not generally known. No intelligent mother wishes to be provincial in her knowledge of childhood. It is the range of her knowledge which enables her to meet with intelligence the problems of her own child.- -Select American Classics (American Book Company, New York), containing selections from Irving, Webster, and Emerson, well bound, and printed on fairly good paper, is sold at 60 cents.

Phillips, Andrew W., and Irving Fisher. Elements of Geometry. $1.75.
D. C. HEATH & CO., BOSTON

Haskell, Ellen M. Child Observations. $1.50.

THE MACMILLAN CO., NEW YORK

Lubbock, Rt. Hon. Sir John. The Scenery of Switzerland.

Two Queens. From the Memoirs of Baron Simolin. Preface by F. Max Müller. 50 cts.

Balzac, Honoré de. Pierrette and The Abbé Birotteau. Translated by Clara Bell. $1.50.

Dorr, ulia C. R. A Cathedral Pilgrimage. 75 cts.

FLEMING H. REVELL CO., NEW YORK

Gordon, Ernest B. Adoniram Judson Gordon. (Biography.) $1.50.
Lyall, David. Heather from the Brae. 75 cts.
Speer, Robert E. Studies of the Man Christ Jesus. 75 cts.
Russell, Ernest E. The Reason Why. $1.

ERNEST E. RUSSELL, NEW YORK

The Religious World

A New Step Forward

at Chautauqua

99

Bishop John H. Vincent has announced a purpose to introduce at Chautauqua, during the present season, what he happily calls "The new education in the church," with the object of promoting biographical study. He quotes Mrs. Humphry Ward's use of Professor Jowett's words: "We shall come in future to teach almost entirely by biography. We shall begin with the life most familiar to us-the life of Christ-and we shall more and more put before our children the examples of great persons' lives, so that they shall have from the beginning heroes and friends in their thoughts." The experiment to be made at Chautauqua will be confined, this summer at least, to a single chapter in the New Testament -a representative chapter-historical, biographical, replete with fundamental doctrine, and designed, as few single chapters in the New Testament are, to afford broad views of revealed truth and stimulate faith and piety in the mind of the student. A little book entitled "Heroes of Faith," containing the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, being a study in the Greek New Testament for beginners, prepared by Burris A. Jenkins, D.B., with an introduction by Professor Joseph Henry Thayer, will constitute the basis of this summer's work. It is a simple and natural guide to the student along this line of inquiry. Besides this special class-work, "the new education in the Church will later on include a seminar for the exhaustive study of the higher forms of home study and Sunday-school work, and will aid special classes in Biblical exegesis and literature. Special attention will be given to story-telling, picture-teaching, and the conversational method. The biographical method will enter into the regular devotional services at Chautauqua this summer, and will be used as a stimulus of spiritual life. It is within the scope of this new education in the Church to promote the scientific study of childhood, give a more critical treatment of the Bible, unite ethics and evangelical truth, enlarge the study of Christ as human and divine, familiarize the Church with the biographical centers of sacred literature and Church history, and lift up higher standards of personal character and attainment in the Church, the Sunday-school, and the home. Certainly this is a large field, with wonderful possibilities. Biblical biography contains charming stories of childhood, of home life, of struggles with poverty and discouragement, of ingenuity, of persistency, and of triumph. The biographical study of the Bible puts principles into concrete form; it arrests attention; it illustrates and demonstrates; it appeals to the imagination; it paints indelible pictures on the walls of memory; and it furnishes companions to love and comfort our whole life through.

Bishop Potter and the Lambeth Conference

The Lambeth Conference to meet in May, 1897, will discuss many important questions relating to the Anglican Church throughout the world. A cable dispatch to the New York papers states that Bishop Potter, of this city, has been requested by the Archbishop of Canterbury to attend a series of meetings convened by the Primate of the English Church in connection with the approaching Conference and to be held at once. The members of the committee to arrange the subjects for discussion comprise representatives of the Church in England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, and the United States, and are as follows: The Rev. Dr. Edward Benson White, Archbishop of Canterbury; the Rev. Dr. William Dalrymple Maclagan, Archbishop of York; Lord Plunket, Archbishop of Dublin; the Rev. Dr. R. Machray, Archbishop of Rupert's Land and Primate of Canada; the Rev. Dr. Frederick Temple, Bishop of London; the Rev. Dr. Brooke Foss Westcott, Bishop of Durham; the Rev. Dr. James Moorhouse, Bishop of Manchester; the Rev. Dr. Charles John Ellicott, Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol; the Rev. Dr. G. H. Wilkinson, Bishop of St. Andrew's; and the Rev. Dr. Henry C. Potter, Bishop of New York.

A Pilgrim Monument

Unveiled

Provincetown, Mass., the place where the Pilgrim Fathers first landed, was on July 14 historically recognized by the State and the town authorities. A great throng of people from many parts of New England gathered in Provincetown to witness the unveiling and dedication of a large monument which has been erected in front of the Town Hall. Two large bronze tablets bearing memorial inscriptions are inserted in the sides of the monument. The occasion was observed by the townspeople with many demonstrations of joy; flags were displayed from the public buildings, and many of the private dwellings were handsomely festooned with flags and streamers. Literary exercises were held in the Town Hall, over which Mr. A. P. Hannum, of the Board of Education, presided as master of ceremonies. Mr. W. T. Davis, Chairman of the Old Colony Commission, formally presented the monument to the State of Massachusetts. Colonel Henry A. Thomas accepted it on behalf of the Commonwealth, and

then gracefully presented it to the town, for which it was accepted by the Board of Selectmen. Addresses were made by Congressman John Simpkins; William S. Green, of Fall River; Shebnah Rich, the Cape Cod historian; Colonel Samuel E. Winslow, of Worcester; and Edwin S. Barrett. An original poem, written for the occasion, was read by Miss Cora H. Howes, and the exercises were appropriately concluded by singing "America." Recently The Outlook published a notice of the unveiling of a stone of memorial in the John Robinson Church at Gainsborough, England, in memory of the Pilgrim Fathers. It isquite evident that the public is appreciating more and more the debt. of gratitude which we owe to the spirit and influence of the Pilgrims.

Millions of Bibles

The American Bible Society has lately issued' its annual report. This shows that the total. issues of the Scriptures by the Society at home and abroad for the year ending March 31 last amounted to 1,750,283 copies. The issues of the Society during the eighty years of its existence amount to 61,705,841 copies. These millions of volumes havebeen circulated in nearly one hundred different languages and dialects. in all parts of the earth. More than one-half of its issues in 1895 went into the hands of the pagan, the Mohammedan, and nominally Christian people outside of the United States; 383,000 were sold in China alone. The Society expended during the year $503,500.52. Agents of the Society report a successful year's work in all parts of the world, except, perhaps, in Cuba and Turkey, both of which coun-tries have been disturbed by internal dissensions. The British and Foreign Bible Society has issued, since 1804, 147,363,669 copies, while seventy-three other societies have issued more than 257,000,000 Bibles, Testaments, and portions.

Robert College

Robert College has been for thirty-three years a. center of Christian education in Turkey. The catalogue for 1896 has just come to us, and gives interesting facts concerning its work. Its history is too familiar to the Christian world to need more than a reference. Its founder was a. New York merchant, Mr. Christopher R. Robert. In 1860 he invited the Rev. Cyrus Hamlin, D.D., to join him in the effort to raise funds. for the establishment at Constantinople of a college which should offer to young men, without distinction of race or creed, the opportunity to secure thorough education, equal to that obtainable in a first-class American college, and based on the same general principles.. In 1863 the College was opened by Dr. Hamlin in a rented house at Bebek on the Bosphorus. Mr. Robert furnished all the necessary funds until his death in 1878, and then bequeathed to it one-fifth of his estate. His benefactions must have aggregated about $400,000. In 1864 "The Trustees of Robert College of Constantinople" were incorporated in the State of New York, and the College included with other similar State institutions in the University of New York. In 1869 an iradé for its establishment was granted by his Imperial Majesty the Sultan to the Legation of the United States at Constantinople, securing to the College all the advantages bestowed by the Imperial Government upon educational institutions in TurkeyIn 1871 the first building, since called Hamlin Hall, was completed, and in 1892 the second, called Science Hall, was inaugurated. The College owns three residences-the President's house and two houses. for professors. One interesting feature of the catalogue is its account of the graduates of the College. Since its beginning in 1863 it has graduated 311, the total number of students during that time being 5,574. It is interesting to note the various occupations of the graduates. They are found in almost all the avenues of work. Among them are clerks, merchants, bankers, teachers, lawyers, doctors, clergymen, and Government officials. The College has a preparatory school which covers three years of study, and which has been recently enlarged, and is now in pressing need of a separate building. The collegiate department occupies five years, and includes the various courses of our own colleges, and also thorough courses in the ancient and modern Armenian language and literature, and a Bulgarian course, whose object is to give the Bulgarian students as good and solid instruction in their vernacular as can be obtained in any Gymnasium in Bulgaria. There is also a Turkish course, which is optional. Physical culture is receiving more attention than formerly. There is also instruction in both vocal and instrumental music. The religious instruction is not controversial, but practical and unsectarian. The students are required to attend the morning prayers with which the work of the classes opens on week-days, and on Sundays the boarders are required to attend the morning and evening religious services and the afternoon Bible class conducted by the professors of the institution. The study of Christian evidences is included in the College curriculum.

both as a memorial to the noble men who have gone to the various foreign fields from the colleges, and as a constant plea for more laborers. This building was erected in 1887. It is not large, and its principal features are a hall for general meetings, with small anteroom used as janitor's room and library. The outside is plain and modest, but the interior is a model of good taste and adaptation to its purpose. “The windows are small and high, leaving the side walls for a high wainscoting of wood surmounted by small panels filled with white painted scrolls bearing the names of men who have gone forth to mission fields, followed by the names of their particular colleges and the date of their departure for the field, and, if deceased, the date also of their departure from the field for a higher service above." Dr. Pierson says: "No student can come into this hall for a daily prayer service or an occasional missionary meeting without thus being compassed about with a great cloud of witnessbearers, whose constant and pathetic pleading for more laborers to enter the wide harvest-field he cannot but hear. Such a hall is the most effective and eloquent missionary advocate one can ever hear, and it is bound to make new missionaries so long as it stands." He then describes the various panels and inscriptions, beginning at the right hand of the platform-end of the hall and proceeding toward the right back to the point of starting. First is the inscription, “Ye have entered into his labors ;" and underneath :

Henry Martyn. St. John's.

North India. 1805-12.
James Hough. Corpus.
South India. 1816-26.

Then in succession around the top of the wainscoting run the inscriptions: "The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few;" "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature ;" "All authority hath been given unto Me in heaven and on earth;" "Go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations;" "One soweth, another reapeth ;" and underneath these are the names and dates as indicated above. Also beside the tablets are portraits, flags of the different missionary countries, fresco devices with symbols for the Apostles, and a large colored chart showing the missionary statistics of the world, etc. "This hall has been designed and admirably adapted to feed and foster an intelligent and devoted type of missionary heroism." Oxford University is planning to build a similar structure to be called “Bishop Hannington Memorial Hall." The site is already purchased, and a building standing on the site is to be remodeled for the purpose. The students are making a noble effort to secure the needed funds, but about £2,500, or $12,500, more are required to complete it for use. Dr. Pierson suggests the erection of such a building in America, say in New York or Brooklyn, to be called "Brainerd Memorial Hall" or the "Judson Memorial." It would be an inspiration to missionary service and sacrifice, and could serve as a rallying point for departing and returning missionary students. He asks in closing: "Who will take the lead in providing this new nucleus for missions among our devoted young men and women ?"

Swedish Lutherans

The old Swede Church in Philadelphia, one among the oldest of the Protestant churches in America in the United States, celebrated recently its one hundred and ninety-seventh anniversary. The present year marks the two hundredth anniversary of the establishment of the Swedish Lutheran Church in America, it being in the year 1696 that King Charles XI. of Sweden issued the memorable royal order to the ecclesiastical state department to provide religious instructors for the Swedish colonies in America, then settled in what are now known as the States of Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. In 1696 the Rev. Andrew Rudman was selected as the first clergyman, and he was permitted to select for himself a fellow-laborer in his office, and for this Dr. Svedberg, who was well acquainted with him, proposed the Rev. Eric Bjork. To these two clergymen a third was also added by the King's command—the Rev. Jonas Auren. Before they left Sweden they were granted an audience with his Majesty, who most kindly received them, and commanded them to be the bearers of the books which the King had presented to the Swedes in America. Among these books were 500 copies of Luther's Catechism, translated into the American Virginian language. Upon the books the King's name was stamped in gilt letters. These books are now very rare in Pennsylvania, the old families of Swedish descent prizing them very highly. On June 25, 1789, the Swedish congregations in this country were, by royal order, granted the independence asked, and virtually transferred to the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States. The above facts we condense from an interesting historical article by Louis G. Northland in the Chicago "Inter-Ocean."

This unique institution, which antedates the war, Berea College and is situated 130 miles south of Cincinnati, on the line between the "blue grass" and the mountains, has completed another successful year. Commencement, June

24, was held in the immense tabernacle, and attended by several thousand people. A notable scene was presented when Professor Rogers, who in 1859 was "warned to leave the State by a company of sixty prominent citizens, shook hands with the Hon. John D. Harris, who pleaded guilty to having been one of that "gang"! Addresses were made by Dr. W. E. Barton, of Boston, the Rev. H. M. Penniman, of Chicago, who has recently become connected with the work at Berea, and the Hon. J. M. Ashley, of Toledo, O. Mr. D. K. Pearsons, of Chicago, has headed a movement for securing $200,000 endowment, pledging himself to give one-fourth the amount. The students have subscribed above $3,000, and a considerable sum will be raised in Kentucky. President Frost has made many new friends in the East during the last year, and says in his annual report that "the tone of the school was never better than to-day, and the number of persons who are watching it with friendly interest was probably never so great." Berea is distinctively Christian, but controlled by no sect. Until larger endowments can be secured, about $12,000 must be provided each year by contributions from friends of the cause.

In San Francisco

A paragraph in The Outlook of June 13, on the condition of affairs in the First Congregational Church of San Francisco, has called out the following letter, which we print in this place that all sides of the question may be known:

I have read with interest your article on the First Church of this city. The writer is evidently not at all familiar with the affairs of the church as they exist to-day, and bases his opinion upon conditions which do not exist. Were the difficulties of the church confined to the Dr. Brown affair, our problem would be a simple one, but we have an accumulation of discords that have been disturbing the peace of the church for ten years past, and this, coupled with the fact that the supporting families of the church have removed to a portion of the city remote from the present location, has brought about a condition which renders it imperative that the church property should be sold and a spot more convenient to our church families be selected. The past six years have demonstrated that if we remain in the present location the property will be consumed in expenses and lost to religious purposes. If we move now, the property can be sold for enough money to build a handsome church situated in a more convenient location and leave a surplus in the treasury of from twenty to thirty thousand dollars. We know of no man, foot-loose, East or West, that could take that pulpit and save the property to Congregationalism. The men that might do it are doing in their own pulpits as great, if not greater, work than they could do in San Francisco, and there are no inducements that can be offered here that would warrant any minister of the Gospel in leaving a successful and useful work in the East to undertake a task which the Board of Officers of the First Church and Society and a large majority of its members consider, from past experience, hopeless, and we must submit that we have quite as good opportunities for correct judgment on this question as has the editor of The Outlook. Could the First Church have been left to settle its own difficulties, it is possible that in time the removal of the First Church to a more convenient location, and an endowment (which has been contemplated) of the present property for evangelistic down-town work might have been accomplished, but the ministers who have assumed control of Congregational affairs on the Coast seem to have lost confidence in the ability of the First Church to handle its own affairs and precipitated by their action a condition that rendered an immediate closing of the church and its sale an absolute necessityDr. Brown and his friends, who constitute a large majority of the church membership, have been at all times in full accord with the entire Board of Officers of the Church and Society, Dr. Brown himself being willing to leave this city and coast whenever the interests of Christianity will be best served thereby. J. H. MORSE.

Brief Mention Bishop Temple, of London, says that during the last twenty-five years Anglican Churchmen have contributed about $400,000,000 to religious objects.

A museum in Berlin has secured possession of Luther's Bible which he used in his study. Its margins are covered with notes in the Reformer's handwriting. It was printed in Basle in 1509, and is in an excellent state of preservation. The Rev. George L. Robinson, D.D., pastor of the Roxbury (Mass.) Presbyterian church, has resigned in order to accept a call to the chair of Old Testament Literature and Exegesis in Knox College, Toronto, Canada.

The Disciples of Christ in California have raised money to sustain an English Bible Chair in connection with the Stole University, to which Professor S. M. Jefferson, Professor of New Testament Literature in Bethany College, has been called.

The very handsome Methodist Episcopal church at Washington, N. J., was dedicated recently by the Rev. Dr. J. M. Buckley, editor of the "Christian Advocate," who preached from the text, "The liberal deviseth liberal things, and by liberal things shall he stand" (Isa. xxxii., 8). The sermon was a particularly strong appeal for liberality in religious things. The new church is said to be the handsomest in northern New Jersey.

"The Congregationalist " says: "The call of the Rev. Dr. F. W. Baldwin, of East Orange, N. J., to the Chair of History and Economics, just established at Bates College, is another evidence that the partition between Free Baptists and Congregationalists is decidedly thin. If his own church permits him to accept this summons of his Alma Mater, his influence, we are sure, will promote still further friendly relations between the denominations."

The sum of $18,500 has been raised for the semi-centennial in honor of the Rev. Dr. Richard S. Storrs, pastor of the Pilgrim Congregational Church, Brooklyn, and the sum is constantly growing. The special committee hopes to complete the full amount of $25,000 by November 19, when it is proposed to celebrate the semi-centennial of Dr. Storrs's pastorate in the Church of the Pilgrims by special services in the church, and in all probability a great massmeeting in the Academy of Music. No doubt the citizens of Brooklyn will be glad of an opportunity to join in a general tribute of honor to one of the city's most prominent preachers.