Politics? Our own cartoonists, working within the heart of the struggle that knits Uncle Sam's brows, share his perplexity, know his vast problem, the vastest that ever confronted nation or human ruler, and fashion him subtly, his chin upon his hand in puzzled thought, his to make good the aspiration of humanity in the matter of wise freedom. By far the most intellectual of the personages representing the nations, a thinker trained, not in the schools, but in life, he knows himself the leader of the fairer hope of mankind, and gives evidence of profoundest meditation, facing the mystery and the uncertainty of the future.

We hardly realize, perhaps, how great is our debt to these gentlemen of the brush and pen; these ephemeral sketches constantly reveal the potential greatness of our country, and as constantly suggest a definite ideal, a standard of achievement of which we must not fall short, helping to work out, in more ways than we know, a vast destiny.

One wonders, not only at the imaginative insight, but also at the greatness of the conception which has come into existence, partly by the help of these interpreters. A touch here, a stroke there, and it grows wisely and nobly, Uncle Sam in his quick remorses and quicker resolves, done to the very life. Deftly they give gentle prick or stimulus toward the right path, if he has wandered from it; with conscience as sensitive as his own they often point

the way. They reveal the fact that his greatest sons have lent him something of their outer features, as well as of their souls; one sees him now with the eyes of an Emerson, alert for the ideal issue, now with something of the sorrowing face of Lincoln, looking out upon the world-war.

So has a national symbol, at first but a derisive attempt to rouse laughter over the rough ways of rustic folk, taken on great aspects; and the Uncle Sam who was originally but a purveyor of provisions at Troy, New York, has already become purveyor of spiritual things. There is about him a certain central simplicity of high intent, as befits the leader of the world's democracy, a singleness of mind. In all the bewildering variety of his experiences, his unnumbered dilemmas, his endless cogitations, there is a singular intentness in his gaze, a steady and guiding aspiration that none of his unexampled material temptations can destroy. He has deep faith, and stern conscience, less changed from Pilgrim Father days than we are prone to think. In these puzzling moments when, not only must the world be set right, but the cruelly difficult decision must be made as to what is right, one sees growing within him a stern strength of resolution to do his duty at all costs. He is an incorrigible idealist, for all his preoccupation with practical matters, and we hardly need the star upon his hatband to remind us how irrevocably he has hitched his wagon to a star.

He was a curly-haired boy of about twenty-five, with a square Irish smile and an expression of sweet stupidity. He wore a blue shirt, and a red tie set off with a mother-of-pearl brooch in the shape of a Celtic harp; his baggy trousers flared and drooped about his ankles. He rushed to and fro like an eager, nosing dog among that throng of excited immigrants, who were festooned with children and bundles and shawl-straps and suit-cases, and had paper blanks in their hands which they read as they walked, submitting with a docile other-worldliness to the pushing and scolding of the Ellis Island officials.

He was a man with a mission, a creature of one idea instead of the fragments of two or three which he usually carried about with him. In this capacity he sidled shyly up to every unattached girl he saw, and asked with an ingratiating gesture of his left hand if she were Katherine O'Sullivan. As disappointment after disappointment confronted him, the beads of perspiration on his forehead merged together and rolled down his temples in two or three big drops; he wiped them off with a handkerchief of neutral tint and stood up on his rough-shod toes, peering down the oncoming line. The frown of anxiety between his eyebrows deepened.

Suddenly he smiled, a smile of widemouthed relief and delight, and laughed aloud, his worry set at rest. "This is Katherine O'Sullivan.' 'It is,' replied the girl.

She was a brisk, self-sufficient young one of eighteen. She had been watching him intently for some little time.

'Well, Kate,' said Dennis, ready with a cordial kiss, 'I'm glad to see you.'

Kate avoided him deftly, set down her suit-case, and slapped him sharply across the face.

'It's glad I'll be when I see the last of you.'

'Why did you that, Kate?' blurted Dennis, puzzled and angry, and rubbing his cheek.

'Move away, whoever speak to an officer.'

ye are, or I'll

'Me!' exclaimed the boy, still rubbing his smarting face. 'It's your cousin I am, Dennis Carney. I thought you'd surely know me.'

"That's easy said,' Kate answered with irony. 'And I'll tell ye something for yer soul's good, Dennis Carney. I've been living out in Dublin for three years past, and it was there I learned there's a deal of talk going around it's no need to believe. I'm not a greenhorn at all.'

Bewilderment shot into the blue eyes of Dennis.

'Come you with me, Katherine,' he said genially, stooping for her suitcase. Is this yours?'

'It is. Take yer hands off it.' Dennis set it down, straightened up, and looked at her, hurt to the quick. 'What is it, Katherine? Don't you know me?'

'I know yer kind, and that's enough.'

'What do ye mean, child?'

Kate's eyes were narrow with doubt born of sophistication.

'Have n't I been watching you with my two eyes going about speaking to this girl and that girl? Sure, there's no good in that kind of a man, and it's myself that knows it. Warned I've been against them, thanks be to the Almighty God!'

'And how would I know it was you then, but to ask?' exploded Dennis, putting his hands on his hips in exasperation, and I not having seen you since you were a child of six years?'

'And how came you to know me at the latter end, so,' parried Kate in triumph, 'not having seen me since I was a child of six years?'

Dennis took out his handkerchief, and wiped his face and neck.

'Why would n't I know you when I saw you? Many's the time it's been given in to me that the two of us looks as much alike as if we were two peas. Why would n't I know my own features and my own appearance when I see them before me?'

This was true, but like many truths it should not have been uttered.

Katherine reddened angrily.

'I to look like you, is it!' She laughed. 'Ye should have spared yerself yer carfare, Dennis Carney, and bought a mirror instead. Ye could have made a better use of it.'

'It was n't me said it, Kate,' muttered Dennis sheepishly. 'It's been given in to me so.'

'And did you think them other girls had yer own features and yer own appearance too? It seems yer own face is walking about on every pretty girl ye see.'

She tossed her head, and set her arms akimbo.

'I did n't rightly know it was you, Kate,' explained Dennis slowly, feeling his way; 'and I did n't surely think them other girls was you. But when I

was n't certain, it seemed well to me to ask any girl who was standing waiting with no one by her -' 'I'm sure of it!'

-the way I would n't make any mistake and you pass out unremarked.' 'What would I be passing out for, and I waiting here for my brother, Patrick O'Sullivan?'

'Pat had his foot hurt the way he could n't come, and he sent me here to meet you and to take his place.'

'That's easy said,' was the indifferent comment.

'But how would I know your name, Kate, if Patrick had n't sent me?'

Kate gave some thought to this.

"That I don't know,' she said at last, slowly, 'if ye did n't read it in some list or in some sort of an article in one of the morning papers.'

'But where would I get a list or an article, Kate, that I'd read the name of Katherine O'Sullivan in?' pleaded Dennis in desperation.

She turned this over in her mind before she answered.

'Or you might be some sort of a false friend to Patrick. It might be it was you hurt his foot on him the way he could n't come down.'

This was too much for Dennis.

'What would I want hurting my cousin's foot?' he burst out indignantly.

'Or it might be you to have done away with him altogether, and to take a paper from his body with my name in it and a word saying I was coming in on the boat the day.'

'In heaven's name, Kate,' exclaimed the boy in horror, are you crazy? What would I want with killing Pat, that used to run through the paddocks with me when we were boys together in the Old Country!"

'What paddocks?' asked Kate, speaking now with real interest.

'Why the paddocks and fields in Donegal. What paddocks would it be?'

'What would they be like, Dennis?' 'What were they like! You ought to know, just having left them. Why, they were like any other paddocks' he paused, and ran his hand across his forehead, with green grass, and broken fences, and an old well standing, and the dogs running about after hares and it might be after a fox.'

Katherine rubbed her sleeve across her eyes.

"That's them,' she said, with a tremble in her throat.

Dennis picked up her bag again. 'Come now, Kate,' he coaxed indulgently, 'this is some sickness is on you, brought on by the heaving of the sea. We'll soon be home now.'

She took a moment to settle her hat, then turned to go. Suddenly she halted.

'Stop, Dennis. Put down the bag. It might be you got it from a picture Pat would have in his pocket. It's not a great while since I sent him a card with a picture on it of the paddocks and the fields that do be in Donegal.' 'Got what?' asked Dennis wearily. Kate went over to him and put both hands on his shoulders, looking earnestly up into his bewildered face.

'Are ye really Dennis Carney?' 'What ails you, Kate?' he asked with the first sign of keen annoyance. 'Surely you know that you won't be let to leave this place till you see an officer on the other side of that stile the way he'll know it's the right one is taking you away.' As he spoke, he gestured toward the door through which the serpentine column was winding, urged and pushed along by glum, blue-coated guards. 'It was only an accident that I got into this room at all, and by being quick. I slipped under the feller's arm, and he yelling out to tell a big Scotchie to come back. Them other people that's passing through won't now be met by them that's belonging to them till their names is called by an officer.

Kate burst into tears. 'It's her,' she sobbed, with her face in the crook of her arm.

Dennis stooped for the bag again, his expression becoming more and more alarmed.

'Come now, Kate,' he said gently. 'It'll not be long till we're home now. Patrick will be wondering what's keeping you.'

'Dennis, dearie, I'll kiss you now,' offered Kate, smiling through her tears. But Dennis rubbed his cheek reminiscently. "There's no time,' he said.

Just then an official came up. 'Move on here,' he commanded. "This ain't a summer resort.'

Kate made a facetious dab at him as he passed. She turned to Dennis, catching his arm, and laughed up at him.

'What, Dennis!' she exclaimed. 'Surely you won't refuse to kiss yer own features and yer own appearance when ye see them before you.'

He bent and kissed her trusting, jovial face, absurdly like his own. Then, blushing, he led the way to the United States and Patrick.

I

THROUGHOUT the long ages during which education has been of the very essence of life, by endless selection and by the relentless test of time a natural educational method has emerged which has a wonderful record of successful application under widely varying conditions. We are not sailing on an uncharted sea, for although innovators. have come and gone, their practices warping or thwarting the lives which have come under their influence, always the sound historic method has survived, being wrought ever more firmly into our lives.

The other day I visited a school where this method is being used with success. It consists in the practice of the arts of life, sometimes with the assistance of the teacher, sometimes by the pupils working out points of technic with each other, when the teacher is not present. Occasionally the teacher will reprove or punish, most often because pupils have become too interested and boisterous for her comfort. Once I saw her bring a new problem to the class, and direct attention to its solution; but in the main the day's work is initiated and sustained by the interest of the pupils. We have here two of the fundamentals of sound education: that its method shall include and mainly consist of the practice of the arts of life, under the direction and inspiration of competent teachers; and that effort shall be initiated and maintained, not primarily by

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outward discipline, but by the guided interest and aspiration of the pupil. The curriculum of this school is very old, the best data indicating that it has been in continuous use, almost without change, for one or two million years.

I had been watching a mother cat and her kittens. A cat must be able to catch food, to fight, and to distinguish between fighting and playing; and these necessities indicate what to it are some of the principal arts of life to be mastered. As I observed the group, the kittens in play would repeatedly attack the mother, she would retaliate, and then would come a tussle, in which the kittens would use all the ability they possessed in efforts to parry and strike, to bite and claw, continually imitating the mother. Sometimes the mother would begin the play, but usually the kittens, not only would begin, but would continue with such interest and vigor that, when the mother, tired out, wanted to stop the game, she would have to punish the kittens severely before they would admit that the lesson period was over. Once, a mouse she had caught became the subject of a lesson, the kittens trying to capture it while it attempted to escape.

As I watched this family at its lessons, I thought of changes in its curriculum which would be made by those innovators who in the past few generations have been teaching human children in accordance with weird theories of education. We might reasonably expect their first dictum to be that we must not trust to the interests of the

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