far as we can find out, no administrative experience whatever. He has been a member of Tammany Hall ever since he has been in public life, and during his terms as a member of Congress he has been not only a strong Democratic partisan, but a faithful member of the group of Tammany Congressmen. He voted along with other Tammany men to sustain the Cannon régime and the Cannon methods. We have heard no adequate, no even plausible, explanation for his appointment-except one. Mr. Harrison is a member of the Ways and Means Committee in Congress. The Chairman of this Committee has succeeded to the former powers of the Speaker, and is an almost autocratic party leader. The present Chairman of that Committee, Mr. Underwood, may possibly go into the Senate. If the selection of his successor as Chairman were made by seniority, Mr. Harrison would be chosen. The leaders of the party, so the explanation runs, want, not Mr. Harrison, but another member of the Committee to succeed, and the easy thing is to get Mr. Harrison to step out by asking him to step up.

We are far from saying that this is the true explanation of Mr. Harrison's appointment, but of all the explanations we have heard it is the only one that even approaches the plausible. That questions regarding the policy of Philippine independence have entered into this selection we cannot seriously believe. Mr. Harrison has had no special qualification for coming to any conclusion regarding such a policy, or of adapting and modifying administrative methods in accordance with such a policy. We describe, for instance, elsewhere the report recently issued concerning slavery in the Philippines. There is nothing to indicate in the slightest degree that Mr. Harrison has any qualifications whatever in dealing with such a difficult problem, whether in the light of one policy concerning Philippine independence or another. The fact, if it is a fact, that Manuel Quezon, the Filipino delegate to Congress, recommended Mr. Harrison's appointment is of no relevance except as it indicates that to the mixture of American partisan politics with Philippine affairs there is added the ingredient of Filipino party politics.

The office of the Governor-General of the Philippine Islands is the greatest administrative office that is filled by the appointing power of the President of the United States. It is reasonable for the American people to expect and require that it shall not be made

the means of rewarding party workers or building up party organizations.

回

BLOT THEM OUT!

A man in his youth was profane, impure, and dishonest. Then the horror of his sin came upon him. In the eyes of the world his would be called but the beginnings of sin, but to himself he stood in the line with the blasphemous, libertines, and bank defaulters. He made the fullest reparation in his power, and no one was hurt, and no one knew of his sins. The years went by, and he was beloved, honored, and respected in the community, the husband of a pure, devoted wife, and the father of beautiful children. Is this man a hypocrite and still in sin because he cannot endure the shame and suffering of laying before the world and his beloved ones the truth of his earlier years? And-are repentance and remorse the same?

To both questions emphatically No! Repentance is abandonment of sin; not from fear of its consequences, but from a hatred of sin itself. He who has abandoned sin and done all in his power to repair the evil which the sin has wrought has experienced full and adequate repentance. No sorrow is of any use which does not lead to such abandonment.

When the sin has been thus abandoned, the wrong-doer has simply to ask himself, How can I best promote the life of purity and goodness and truth in my own life and in the life of my fellow-man? To lay before the world and one's loved ones the history of past sins, long since abandoned, has no tendency to promote the life of purity, goodness, and truth. It would have rather the reverse tendency. The Bible says that when we have repented of our sins God buries them in the depths of the sea, blots them out of the book of his remembrance, remembers them no more against us forever. We are to follow his example. When we have abandoned our sins and made all the reparation possible, we are then to bury them in the depths of the sea, blot them out of the book of our remembrance, remember them no more forever. Bunyan in his "Pilgrim's Progress" illustrates this truth. When the Pilgrim came to the Cross of Christ, the burden which he had been bearing rolled off from his shoulders and disappeared, and he saw it no more. It would have been worse than folly for him to have turned around, gone back to his burden, and bound it on his back again, that he might show it to his fellow-travelers as he went upon his journey.

The difference between rernorse and repentance is illustrated by the contrasted experiences of Judas Iscariot and Peter. Both felt sorry for their sin. Judas showed his sorrow by endeavoring to escape from it by self-destruction; Peter by a new life of loyalty and service.

WHAT IS THE USE OF

COLLEGES?

Mr. Edward Bok, by his correspondence with college men and women and his article in The Outlook giving the results of that correspondence and his conclusions thereon, has rendered the American public a valuable service. It is well worth while for the institution as for the individual to be brought occasionally to the judgment bar of public opinion and asked the question, What are you doing for the public? And this is especially desirable when the institution is supported by the public, as the college is supported by tuition fees, private endowments, and often by State appropriations.

A

We do not agree with Mr. Bok that the 1,426 students who failed to reply to his inquiry were guilty of discourtesy. stamped return envelope does not entail upon the receiver a moral obligation to reply. A has no right to determine how B shall employ his time; no more right to demand that time by a written than by a personal interview. How he shall employ his time is a question which B must determine for himself.

On the other hand, those who defend the college on the ground that it is not the function of the college to teach spelling, writing, and grammar appear to us to miss the real question. The college does not merely teach, it certifies.

The degree of A. B. signifies, or ought to signify, that he who possesses it is fairly well educated. He who cannot write an intelligible English letter is not fairly well educated. The object of an entrance examination is to ascertain whether the candidate for admission is sufficiently educated to enter college. The object of the final examination is to ascertain whether the candidate for graduation is sufficiently educated to gradu

perform a simple sum in addition and does not know what is the capital of the United States, he should not be allowed to enter college, still less to graduate with college honors. It is not the business of the college to teach English grammar; but it is the business of the college to ascertain whether its students know enough of English grammar to write grammatically. The degree of A.B. ought to mean something; and it certainly ought to mean that the Bachelor of Arts knows the fundamentals of the language of his country.

And it is very easy to ascertain.

Hampton Institute requires every applicant for admission to write a letter applying for admission. The American college might well follow the example of Hampton Institute. It might well require every candidate for admission to write a letter applying for admission, and giving in his letter necessary information, such as his address, the names of his parents, his residence, whe and how he prepared for college, etc. this letter were misspelled, ungrammatical, illegible, his application should be refused. Typewritten letters should be declined.

If

The University of Texas, we are told, requires every college exercise in writing to be grammatically and intelligibly written. That seems to us right. Every written exercise, whether in science, philosophy, history, or literature, might well be subjected to a double examination and required to come up to a double standard. It should give satisfactory evidence of accuracy of information and serious thinking; but it should also give satisfactory evidence that the writer knows how to express his information and his thoughts in grammatical and correctly spelled English. No illiterate person should be allowed to enter college, or to go on with his college course if he succeeded in squeezing in, or to graduate if he succeeded in escaping detection until his finals.

Mr. Bok is abundantly able to defend himself, and we are not writing to defend him. But we do not understand that he wants the college to prepare men for business. This certainly is not our demand. But we do demand, and we have a right to demand, that it prepare men and women for life. hold these two propositions to be axiomatic: The business of education is the development of character.

For we

The test of character is ability to live a useful and happy life.

T

WELVE hundred delegates, representing twenty countries, met in Buffalo, New York, last week for the fourth International Congress on School Hygiene. The Congress continued for a full week, and was divided into several sections, at which many phases of the broad subjects of health, instruction, and disease prevention were discussed. There were several general meetings to which the public was admitted, and at which audiences that filled the big convention hall in which these meetings were held indicated the interest that has been awakened in this subject. A feature of the Congress that attracted a great number of visitors was the exhibition of hygienic equipment and methods of health instruction. The exhibits filled another large hall, and thousands of residents of the city and visitors from all parts of the United States and Canada passed through it daily. In conjunction with the Congress a National conference on the education of backward, truant, delinquent, and dependent children, and a meeting of the National Probation Association, were held for a discussion of the work of juvenile courts and of the allied problems of delinquency. The American Physical Education Association also held its meeting in Buffalo during the week.

While this was the fourth World Congress held to consider the subject of school hygiene, it was the first to meet in the western hemisphere. The Congresses are held at intervals of three years. The first assembled at Nuremberg in 1904, the second at London in 1907, and the third at Paris in 1910. The holding of the fourth meeting in the United States was a timely recognition of the fact that this country is just beginning to realize that the care of the health of children during the period of school life is at least equal in importance to the mental training which the school curriculum regularly undertakes to impart. That the whole civilized world is undergoing an awakening on this subject is perhaps the most valuable lesson of the Congress. Re

ports on health work in the schools of Argentina, Mexico, and Japan showed that scientific and progressive methods are being adopted in the schools of those countries; and the delegate from Argentina, after reporting on the plans for a rapid extension of the work in his country, invited the Congress to hold its next meeting in Buenos Aires.

One who had attended many gatherings of scientific or educational bodies was immediately impressed at Buffalo with the difference in atmosphere and spirit from the usual meeting of this sort. Most of the delegates to the Congress were medical men or educators, yet the Congress was unlike either a convocation of physicians or a pedagogical convention. It suggested rather an assemblage of men and women representing a new profession, a profession that has not quite found itself. There was the keenest interest in the comparison of ideas that have been evolved from practical experience in different countries. It was evident that the practice of school hygiene has not yet become fully standardized. Different communities have taken up different divisions of the main problem. In some cities special attention has been given to medical inspection, in others to the provision of sanitary school buildings, and in others to the instruction of mentally exceptional children, while in all there are important and impressive problems that have received little or no attention.

The keynote of the Congress was supplied in the welcoming address of Dr. John H. Finley, who is retiring from the presidency of the College of the City of New York to become the head of the Educational Department of the State of New York. Dr. Finley described school hygiene as the conservation of human power. As one listened to the various papers, viewed the exhibits, and heard the experiences detailed by medical inspectors, school nurses, and instructors, during the progress of the Congress, one became more and more impressed with the accuracy of this definition and with the fact that it is far more adequate as a descrip

tion of the end and aim of school hygiene than is the official title of the Congress.

It is impossible within the brief limits of this correspondence to give more than a suggestion of the wide range of subjects. covered by the discussions of the Congress. Elaborate consideration was given to the construction, ventilation, heating, illumination, and cleansing of school buildings. The proper place and equipment of open-air schools received much discussion. The experience of Oakland, California, with open-air instruction was summed up in the requirement that at least one open-air room must be provided in every new building erected. A somewhat novel and striking suggestion on school construction was advanced by Sir James Grant, of Canada, who opposed the building of ornate and expensive school buildings and urged the advantages of buildings that could be easily razed to meet changing conditions.

The importance of examinations to discover and correct defects of vision in school-children was illustrated by statistics showing that 31,000, or 26 per cent, of the children in the rural schools of New York suffered from defective eyesight, as shown by an examination in 1912, and from evidence that this represents only an average condition. Many instances were cited of children whose backwardness in studies had been remedied merely by supplying proper glasses or by correcting other slight defects of vision. A striking instance of transition from backwardness to competency, through the correction of what once would have passed as a trivial defect, was reported by Miss Lillian Murney, of Cleveland, before the section on mouth hygiene. This was the case of a girl in one of the Cleveland schools whose teeth were badly impacted. Her eyes were crossed, and her mental development was far below that of other children of her own age. Removal of the offending teeth was followed by the disappearance of the eye-crossing, and the child began to make rapid progress toward the mental standards of other children of her

own age. While this was an exceptional case, it affords striking evidence of the practical value of medical school inspection and of school clinics.

The problem of safeguarding children against the spread of communicable diseases, especially in rural and village communities where hospital care for contagious diseases is not available, was one of the important

subjects considered by the Congress. Testimony from every hand showed that the value of efficient medical inspection is now so widely recognized that such inspection is made compulsory in many countries and cities. Dr. Finley called attention to the fact that the Legislature of New York during the present year passed a law requiring medical inspection in all the schools of the State, both urban and rural.

One of the subjects that received a large share of attention was that of mental hygiene and the mentality of the abnormal child. The discussions of this subject, the mental hygiene exhibit, and the psychological clinics. were all largely attended, and particular interest was manifested in the results obtained in schools and classes devoted to the training of those children whose mentality is sub-normal. The policy of segregation and social control of mental defectives was strongly advocated by President Charles W. Eliot and by others who discussed this subject.

Of all the topics before the Congress, the one that aroused the greatest amount of interest and discussion was that of the proper place of instruction in sex hygiene in the schools. This was due partly, of course, to the fact that such instruction is newer than that in other branches of school hygiene, and partly to the widespread popular agitation of the subject at the prescat time. In fact, so great was the interest displayed in this question that a special session was devoted to it in addition to the regular sections that had been provided for. This session was presided over by President Eliot, and was among the most noteworthy of the week.

While there was substantial agreement as to the necessity of instruction in sex hygiene, it was noticeable that two divergent groups of opinion developed as to the part that the school should take in providing such instruction, as to the methods that should be employed, and as to the age at which such teaching should begin.

On the one hand, the radicals on this subject declared that instruction in sex hygiene should begin in the elementary classes, with illustrations of the reproduction of life from the world of plants and flowers, and that the teaching of this subject should be carried forward through the grammar school, high school, and college. They argued that this work must be performed by the school because, if left to other agencies, it would not be performed at all.

On the other side, the conservatives held to the view that, while instruction in sex hygiene should be given to pupils of advanced standing, it was possible that more harm than good might result from the attempt to impart such knowledge to children in the lower grades. They pointed out that no text-books had been compiled or could be compiled on this subject that could safely be placed in the hands of younger children, and urged that better results might be obtained by extending the teaching of this subject to adults, who might in turn impart it to their children. This view of the matter was ably presented by the Rev. Richard J. Tierney, a Catholic clergyman and teacher. He insisted that while the intellectual side of the proposed instruction in sex hygiene was definite and detailed, the ethical side was left too vague and too purely naturalistic. Information alone could not keep a man upright, he held, but religious or ethical belief must play a large part in it. He urged that instruction alone must fail to accomplish the result aimed at, and that the personal purity campaign must be carried further and applied to outside social activities as well as to the training received in the school.

The net result of the discussion of this topic undoubtedly will be a great extension. of properly safeguarded instruction in this important subject.

One feature of this Congress on School Hygiene which deserves mention even in a

brief report of its activities was the great personal tribute to President Eliot which it called out. As President of the Congress, he was naturally one of its most conspicuous figures. It was not in this official capacity, however, but rather as the foremost figure in the educational and intellectual life of the Nation that the distinguished President Emeritus of Harvard occupied the most influential place in the deliberations of the Congress. In every discussion in which he participated the influence of his virile personality gave vigor and worth to the proceedings. Perhaps no better evidence could be given of the importance which the subject of school hygiene in its broadest interpretation has come to command than is afforded by the fact that the man whose life and achievements comprehend the greatest progress in the instruction of the youth of the country should take the leading part in a Congress devoted to health promotion through the schools.

In the countries in which the preceding Congresses have been held, each of these gatherings has been followed by a great expansion in the scope and efficiency of health instruction. Those who are devoting themselves, either as a vocation or as an avocation, to the bringing about of higher standards of health in the United States left Buffalo with renewed inspiration to make a like record of progress in this country.

EARL W. MAYO.

what he is doing.

Religion is partnership with God. The most irreligious work in the world is the religious work that has not God in it; and there is no truer religious work than the work of the statesman, the merchant, the lawyer, if he is working for God and God is working with him. There is no such profanation as a pulpit that has not God in it; and there is no more sacred ground than the lawyer's office, if God is in it. Every bush is all aflame; and when our eyes are opened and we see life as it is, we take our shoes from off our feet and know that we are on holy ground. It is only because we