first notes of the orchestra announce the resumption of the opera. On Sunday evenings the opera-house is crowded, and at the long windows of the hall, which descend to the ground, one can see the German population of half a dozen adjacent blocks, tiptoe with delight at the whiff of stolen harmony. The "breweries" scattered through the city are gigantic establishments, for the making of beer ranks third in the productive industries of St. Louis. Iron and flour precede it, but a capital of nearly four millions of dollars is invested in the manufacture, and the annual productive yield from the twenty-five breweries is about the same amount. Attached to many of these breweries are concert gardens, which are scrupulously respectable in all their attributes, and are frequented by thousands weekly. The Germania and Harmony Clubs, and a hundred musical and literary organizations use up the time of the city Germans who are well-to-do, while their poor brethren delve at market gardens, and are one of the chief elements in the commerce of the huge and picturesque St. James Market, whither St. Louis goes to be fed. The Hibernian is also prominent in St. Louis; he has crept into the hotel service, and the negro has sought another field of occupation.

The operation of the German mind upon the American has been admirably exemplified in St. Louis by the upspringing in the new and thoroughly commercial capital of a real and noteworthy school of speculative philosophy, at whose head, and by virtue of his distinguished preeminence as a thinker, stands William T. Harris, the present superintendent of the city public schools. Mr. Harris, during his stay at Yale, in 1856, met the venerable Alcott, of Concord, and was much stimulated by various conversations with him. At that time he had studied Kant a little, and was beginning to think upon Goethe. The hints given him by Mr. Alcott were valuable, and sometime afterwards, when he settled in St. Louis, and came into contact with Germans of culture and originality, his desire for philosophical study was greatly increased and strengthened. In 1858 he became engaged in teaching, for eight years conducting one of the graded schools. The first year of his stay in St. Louis he studied Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason," without, as he says, understanding it at all. He had been solicited and encouraged to

these studies by Henry C. Brockmeyer, a remarkable and brilliant German, and so enthusiastic for Kantian study that he awoke a genuine fervor in Mr. Harris. They arranged a Kant class, which Mr. Alcott on one occasion visited, and in a short time the love for philosophical study became almost fanaticism. A number of highly cultured Germans and Americans composed the circle, whose members had a supreme contempt for the needs of the flesh, and who, after long days of laborious and exhaustive teaching, would spend the night hours in threading the mysteries of Kant. In 1858 Mr. Harris claims that they mastered Kant, and between that period and 1863 they analyzed, or, as he phrases it, obtained the keys to Leibnitz

and Spinoza. The result of this long study is written out in what Mr. Harris calls his "Introduction to Philosophy," in which he deals with "speculative insights." Every one, he claims, will have the same insight into Kant, Leibnitz and Spinoza as he did, by reading his "Introduction." He already has a large number of followers, many of whom apply his theories, according to his confession, better than he does himself: and his Journal of Speculative Philosophy, started boldly in the face of many obstacles, has won a permanent establishment and gratifying success. Among the most prominent members of the Philosophical Society, which was definitely organized in 1864, were Mr. Brockmeyer, J. G. Werner, now a probate judge, Mr. Kroeger (a stern, unrelenting philosopher,

enamored of Fichte, translator of the Science of Knowledge, and author of a History of the Minnesingers, George H. Howison, now in the Boston Institute of Technology, and Mr. Thomas Davidson, one of the most effective students of Aristotle in this country. Mr. Brockmeyer is the accomplished translator of Hegel's Logic. The Journal of Speculative Philosophy was prompted in this wise: Mr. Harris wrote a "Critique upon Herbert Spencer's First Principles," which was offered to The North American Review, but the editors failed to discover anything in it, save that it was very audacious, and returned it to the author. Mr. Harris thereupon valiantly started his own journal in April of 1867. The publication is gaining ground in this country, and has won a very wide and hearty recognition in Germany and among thinking men throughout Europe.

The Germans have, as a rule, frankly joined hands with the Americans in the public schools, and have imparted to them many excellent features. The composite system differs largely from that in vogue in other cities. There is, of course, a very large Catholic population in St. Louis, but it is pretty evenly balanced by German skepticism. The city public schools are utterly secular in their teaching, but, notwithstanding that fact, the priesthood makes constant and successful efforts to keep Catholic children from them, and wherever a new public school building is erected, Holy Church speedily buys ground and sets up an institution of her own. The Catholic laity of St. Louis, however, are, perhaps, if they spoke their real sentiments, in favor of the public schools; and there has been a vast advance towards liberalism on their part within the last few years. The Catholics have eight or nine out of the twenty-four members of the school board, and of course have much to say. It is wonderful that in a capital where the population is so little gregarious, and where, up to last year, it has been so comparatively indifferent to lecture courses, such an earnest interest should be taken in the schools by all classes. All the powers relating to the management of the schools are vested in a corporate body called "the Board of President and Directors of the St. Louis Public Schools," the members of the board to be elected by the people for terms of three years. The school revenue is derived from rents of

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property originally donated by the general government, from the State school fund, and from taxes of four mills on the dollar on city property, and the yearly income from these sources averages perhaps $700,ooo. The school board has unlimited authority to tax to any amount. tween the district and the high schools there is a period of seven years, during which the pupil acquires a symmetrical development admirably fitting him for the solid instruction which the finishing school can offer. But out of forty thousand children enrolled upon the public school list, only about two and a half per cent. enters the high school. The feature of GermanEnglish instruction has become exceedingly popular, and the number of pupils belonging to the classes increased from 450, in 1864-5, to 10,246, in 1871-2. The phonetic system of learning to read was introduced in the primary schools in 1866, and has been attended with the most gratifying results. The city acted wisely in introducing the study of German, as otherwise the Teutonic citizen would doubtless have been tempted to send his child to a private school during his early years. Now native American children take up German reading and oral lessons at the same time as their little German fellow-scholars; and in the high school special stress is laid upon German instruction in the higher grades, that the pupils may be fitted for a thorough examination of German science and literature. The growth of St. Louis is so rapid that the school board is compelled annually to build several large new school buildings, each capable of containing from seven to eight hundred pupils. The introduction of natural science into the district schools is indicative of liberal progress. Normal schools in St. Louis and at Kirksville and Warrensburg are annually equipping a splendid corps of teachers. The public school system throughout the State is exceedingly popular, judging from the fact that a quarter of a million of children attend the schools during the sessions. The State fund appropriated to school purposes is usually large, and although there have been objections to local taxation for school support in some of the counties, the taxes have generally been promptly paid. The largest and finest edifices in such flourishing cities as St. Joseph, Kansas City, Sedalia, Clinton, Springfield, Mexico, Louisiana and Booneville are usually the "school-houses;" and in

Kansas City, which was without railroad communication in 1865, the school buildings are now as complete, elegant and large as any in Boston or Chicago. The School of Design in St. Louis, conducted by Mr. Conrad Diehl, is rapidly growing, and has already won enviable praise in the most cultured art circles of the East.

The Catholic population within the archdiocese of St. Louis is certainly very large, probably numbering two hundred thousand persons; and from this population at least twenty-five thousand children are furnished to the one hundred parish schools attached to the various churches in the diocese. None of these schools receive any aid from the common school fund, and the pupils are in every way removed from the influences of secular education, and made a class by themselves. It is estimated that the Catholics now own more than four millions of dollars worth of church and school property in Missouri, and in their various colleges, convents, seminaries and academies in St. Louis and the other large cities of the State they have at least fifteen hundred students. They have kept well abreast of the tide of secular education, and bid it open defiance on all occasions, while the sceptical and easy-going German laughs at their zealotry, and the American closes his eyes to their growing power. Vast as is the growth of colleges and schools of various other denominations, such as the Baptist, the Methodist, and the Methodist Episcopal Church South, the Catholics keep even with them all. Ever since old Gribault, the first pastor in St. Louis, led his little flock of five hundred Frenchmen to the altar, Mother Church has been bold, dominant, defiant in the young capital of the West.

I was especially interested in "Washington University" at St. Louis, conducted by Rev. Dr. Eliot, so long pastor of the First Unitarian Church in that city. The institution has had a superb growth since its founding in 1853-4, despite the unfortunate intervention of the war, and now has more than eight hundred students in its various branches. Nourished by generous gifts from the East, it has made great progress in its departments of civil and mechanical engineering, mining and metallurgy, and architecture, and its law department is ably supported. To that section of the University devoted to the special

WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY-ST. LOUIS.

education of women, known as " Mary Institute," the flower of Missourian girlhood annually repairs. The University seems to have had an almost mushroom growth; yet its culture is solid and substantial, and its preparatory schools are crowded with ambitious and aspiring students. The State University is located at Columbia, and has also been characterized by a remarkable growth since the war. During the struggle its buildings were occupied by United States troops, and its sessions were entirely broken up; the library was dispersed, the warrants of the institution were afloat at a discount, and various prejudices had nearly ruined it. At last Rev. Dr. Daniel Read took the presidency; and the re-organized University comprises a Normal college, an agricultural and mechanical college, opened in 1870, law and medical schools, and a department of chemistry, and now has attached to it a "school of mines and metallurgy," established at Rolla, in South-eastern Missouri. Into this mining school students will flock from all directions, and turn their attention towards a scientific development of the mineral resources of the State. Women have finally been admitted to the University, and at the commencement of 1872, a young lady was advanced to the baccalaureate grade in science.

The midsummer heats, during which I visited the Exchange of St. Louis, seem to make but little difference with the ardor and energy of its members. The typical

July day in the Missourian capital is the acme of oppressive heat; before business hours have begun the sun pours down bewildering beams on the current of the great river, on the toiling masses at the levee, and along the airless streets rising from the water side. The ladies have done their shopping at an early hour, and gone their ways; paterfamilias seeks his Avernus of an office, clad only in thinnest of linen, and with a palm-leaf fan in his hand; a misty aroma of the cool-scented ices of Hellery or Gregory floats before him as he seats himself at his desk, and turns over the voluminous correspondence from far Texas, from the vexed Indian Territory, from the great Northwest, from Arkansas, or from the hosts of river towns with which the metropolis does business. At eleven the sun has become withering to the unaccustomed Easterners, but the St. Louis paterfamilias coolly dons his broad straw hat, and, proceeding to the "Merchants' Exchange," a huge circular room into which the thirteen hundred members vainly try each day to cram themselves, he makes his way to the corner allotted to his branch of trade, and patiently swelters there until nearly one o'clock. In this single room every species of business is transacted; one corner is devoted to flour, a second to grain, a third to provisions, a fourth to cotton, etc. A whirlwind of fans astonishes the stranger spectator; people mop their foreheads and swing their palm-leaves hysterically as they conclude bargains; and, as they saunter away together to lunch, still

"THE TRACKS"-PILOT KNOB."

vigorously fan and mop. The tumult and shouting is not so great as in other large cities, but the activity is the same; and from time to time the laborers go to refresh themselves at great cans filled with sulphur water. But in a few years the magnificent new Exchange building, which will, in many respects, be the finest on the continent, will rise, and trade will not only be classified, but will have far greater facilities for public transactions than at present.

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St. Louis has determined to become a leading cotton market, and, in view of the new railroad development ministering directly to her, it seems probable that she will take position among the cotton marts of the world. The opening of Northern Texas, and of the whole of Arkansas to immediate connection by rail with the Missourian capital, and the probability-alas, for the faithlessness of nations!-of white settlement and increase of cotton culture in the Indian Territory, will give a back country capable of producing millions of bales annually for St. Louis to draw upon. She will eventually become a competitor with Houston, Galveston, and New Orleans for the distribution of the crop of the Southwest, and has already, as she believes, received sufficient encouragement to justify the building of large storehouses along the line of the Iron Mountain Railroad. good deal of the cotton once handled in New Orleans has lately been going to New York by rail, and the St. Louis merchants and factors are now using a new "compress," by means of which 24,000 pounds of cotton can be placed in a single freight car. The city is now receiving only forty to sixty thousand bales annually, but confidently counts on several hundred thousand as soon as it has perfected its arrangements for transportation. It will, without doubt, control the cotton in certain sections of Arkansas, and the southern portions of Missouri, and can make very seductive bids for the crops of many sections of Texas. To draw the attention of cotton-growers towards the St. Louis market, the Agricultural Association recently offered premiums of $10,000 for the best specimens of various grades of cotton. The Atlantic and Pacific, the Missouri, Kansas and Texas, the St. Louis and South-eastern, the Cairo and Fulton, the Mobile and Ohio, and the Iron Mountain roads will probably bring large quantities of cotton to St. Louis in the future. The testimony of

railroads, while at least thirty are pointed at her gates. all the railroads and by river routes she received, in 1872, nearly four millions of tons of freight, being a vast increase over her receipts of 1871, and shipped 2,009,941 tons. 1872 the railroads alone brought her nearly 800,000 tons of coal. In 1872 she expended $7,000,000

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in new buildings, and in 1873 about $8,000,000.

Through her vast elevators, four of which are located along the banks of the Mississippi, and one of which has a capacity of two millions of bushels, passed more than twenty-eight millions of bushels of grain in 1872; and in 1873 the receipts and exports were largely increased over this figure. She contributed $2,500,000 in duties from her custom-house in 1872: manufactured in 1873 1,384,180 barrels of flour, and received nearly that number by various rail and river routes; received 279,678 cattle, and shipped 188,306;, imported and exported more than a million swine; took nearly thirty thousand bales of hemp into market; handled hundreds of millions of feet of lumber, shingles and lathes, drifted down from the Upper Mississippi, the Black and the Wisconsin rivers; and consummated vast bargains in wool, hides and tobacco.

The river trade has many peculiar features, and is subject to a thousand fluctuations and adversities which make it, at all times, hazardous. For many years past the steamboat men have had unprofitable sea

IN THE CUT AT IRON MOUNTAIN.

sons to bewail. Their especial enemies have been low water and railroad competition. It would seem from a glance at published statistics, that the railways are gradually absorbing the carrying trade of the Mississippi Valley; but such is not the case. The rivers still remain the principal arteries of commerce; and the moment that low water is reached, or ice closes navigation, the greatest depression is visible in St. Louis; trade is at an absolute standstill. The Mississippi is the main outlet possessed by the city for her supplies for southern consumers. In view of this fact, it is of the greatest importance that the Mississippi should receive the improvements so much needed between the mouths of the Missouri and the Ohio. A formidable system of dykes and dams, it is confidently believed, would make open navigation throughout the year feasible.

It is impossible to give an adequate idea of the picturesqueness and vivacity of the river trade; it must be seen. One learns to appreciate the real volume of the current of the "Father of Waters" only after he learns something of the multitude of boats, barges and rafts found on its