It may seem a remarkable face arly all

T may seem a remarkable fact that in

nations are engaged, the oldest, wisest, and greatest nation is not only not participating, but is apparently looked upon as a negligible quantity by the belligerent powers. Surely no greater tribute could be paid to the wisdom and the greatness of the Chinese.

Some one has said that "No man was ever so wise as some Chinamen look." But will not these cataclysmal European happenings demonstrate a denial of this statement? Will they not prove that some one is as wise as some Chinamen look, and that person the Chinaman? In his rock garden near Peking the Chinese. philosopher sits fanning himself. His mind communes with the spirits of his ancestors, and meditates upon the unforgetable wisdom of the Lord Confucius.

He recalls how a few idle centuries ago the continuity of these peaceful meditations was disturbed by the sudden arrival of restless infidels on his shores. Even now he can see their strained, feverish faces. To the trained eye they differed from one another; they spoke different languages, wore different clothes, had different casts of countenance, but to the all-seeing eye they were fundamentally the same. They preached the same doctrine-a doctrine they labeled “progress, civilization." They professed several mushroom faiths, the dominant one being called "Christianity," concerning which

they differed profoundly, and split up into many subdivisions. The Chinese philosopher recalls the faces of their emissaries who came to him and said:

"Wake! You must advance, you must bestir yourself!" bestir yourself!" He can almost recall the tones of mild remonstrance of his own voice.

"To what end?"

"To progress. To become civilized, to enter into the great world competition.'

They hardly stayed to listen to the serene philosophy which his master would have inspired him to instil into them if they had stayed to listen, they were in so restless a hurry. They said:

"If you do not do this, we will destroy you."

They were off again to struggle with one another for good positions on his shores, there to carry on their strange and unaccountable practices of buying and selling, and distributing soul-destroying spirits to the undisciplined, and to erect tin temples to their parvenu Gods. He saw their fussy gunboats on his rivers destroying human life.

Some there were who were disturbed by these actions, and came to him and said: "What shall we do concerning this? Shall China stretch forth her hand?"

And he had answered:

"China is linked to the sun and moon by immemorial ties. Look into your heart, my children, and read the words of the All-Wise."

"Ai-e-e!"

He meditates upon this for some time.

He harbors no feelings of animosity against these people who had threatened to destroy him; only his heart is filled with a strange, pitying misgiving that there should be so much lack of culture, so little appreciation of the value of inner progress, and so exaggerated a sense of the value of outer progress.

Wood-pigeons are cooing in their cot above the temple, and the sound, mingling with the low chanting of a priest, tends to emphasize the tranquillity of the evening. Ten million men! It is very sad, very deplorable; but he banishes these melancholy thoughts, for he knows that his mind must be occupied with far more important matters. It is the hour when, in strict accordance with immemorial precepts, he must look into his own soul.

EFFICIENCY-that's the word

nowadays; but is n't it odd, inefficient even, that the man who kisses his wife, reaches for his hat, and opens the front door with just two scientific movements, who eats his two-minute egg every morning with six studied motions, and who shaves himself in eight and one quarter seconds by the Taylor System, has n't thought what a comparatively inefficient machine his body is?

Man is an adaptive mechanism; no doubt about it. In the good old cave days, and before, when he used to swing from tree to tree with his toes, man had toes to swing from tree to tree with.

Later, swinging from tree to tree being considered out of place in a drawingroom, and nimble prehensile toes being of but little practical assistance to the modern business man, toes became static, so to speak. Their only known use to the efficient man at present is to fill the ends of shoes.

It is obvious, therefore, that with a little patience other changes can be made in

the human body to adapt it better to the modern age of efficiency.

A noted efficiency engineer, who asks that his name for the present be withheld, has gone over the human machine with, in the manner of speaking, a fine-tooth comb. He has made the following suggestions for improving it, based on approved efficiency principles.

1. It is ridiculous for bones to be made out of bone. Reinforced concrete, with steel hinges at the joints, would be more serviceable.

2. White is not a good color for skin, and skin is a poor material for skin to be made of. A skin of pale-green rubber or leather would be pleasing to the eye, would n't show the dirt, and would last a lifetime.

3. It is absurd to have two eyes in front when one would do. One eye should be placed in the back of the head. Better still, a third eye could easily be developed. If a man tried constantly to see with the back of his head, in a few generations a third eye would undoubtedly sprout there.

So Jim never said anything. But he sent his son to college.

JOHN ERSKINE.

New York, April 10.

Ode to Professor John Erskine

(In allusion to his Ode to Doctor Abraham Flexner) (From the New York "Evening Post")

JIM

IM REILLY'S son Tom did n't
know what he wanted to do.

So he took Latin and Mathematics and hoped they 'd discipline his mind. And prepare him for sharing in polite intercourse.

After three years he knew that two straight lines perpendicular to the same plane

Are parallel to each other.

And for a short time he could say what were both sine and cosecant;

But a month after the examination he

unhappily forgot which was which. He had learned a list of diminutives; only culum and bulum remained to him

So sweet was their euphony.

He knew the mute with 1 or r played a mystic rôle in the higher life, Which in moments of depression he felt he did n't grasp.

An old book by an old man for the old Tightened the reins of his youthful spirit. When he reached the two gates of

slumber at the end of Lib. VI They gave him ready exit, and he never began Lib. VII.

But he had the elements of a liberal

education, and,

Like his philistine father before him,

Whenever the conversation started he 'd say to himself:

"I'll lie low till it comes my wayThen I'll show 'em."

But they never mentioned the cæsural

WH

HEN Tom Reilly had grown to elderly prosperity,

So that he rode down-town in his limousine at ten A.M., preceded by six inches of cigar,

He said to his son George: "George, college did worlds for me. I don't remember a darned thing I learned there, but

The fellows I played round with are
now my fellow-directors,

And my intimacy with them is profitable.
Which college do you prefer?"
And George said,

"Thank you, Father,"

And selected the college that had just made a clean sweep in major sports.

So George went.

He learned lots of things.

Although he did n't catch the sort of cul

tivation to which occasional contact with the faculty exposed him, He learned that the most important thing in life

Is that the score on November 20 should be 16-0 and not 0-16.

And the next most important thing is to get by with a C in at least three out of five courses.

He learned what loyalty to an educational institution is,

To smoke cigarettes on the bleachers and yell at last practice.

He learned that the first and great commandment is,

Thou shalt bet on thy teams and refrain from independent thinking and look with a skeptic eye on Phi Beta Kappa.

Thus did college instil in George a sense of proportion,

A sense of permanent values.
So he went out into the world,

And he said, "I'll lie low till it comes

my way, Then I'll show 'em."

And it came his way.

He could talk sports and stocks and drinks and motor-cars with the best of the brokers,

And he got promoted in the bank because he had belonged to Beta Veta Delta and played left tackle. To-day he has three limousines to his father's one,

And a town house

And a yacht

And a place at Tuxedo

And a camp in the Adirondacks with twenty guest-rooms and thirty baths. And when the application blanks for the boat-race come around

He puts fifty dollars on the crew,
And with the words,

"It is n't the studies that count in college, It's the college life,"

He thanks his father's memory for his education.

F. L. A.