emitted a grunt of pain and detached himself himself from the hurlyburly.

The tumult and the shouting and the shouting died, while the farmer arose from the ruck with a changed counte

nance.

"Will-yum," he cried in accents wild, "is my head all stove in?"

Then before the son could answer, the light of battle entered the father's eyes. He seized a club and advanced upon the sultan who had made a strategic retreat into a corner of the barnyard fence and was there waging a rear-guard action with the now thoroughly bellicose Pete. Into this carnage the farmer sprang and there proceeded to instil respect for the human species into the troubled mind of the sheep. After this task had been suitably accomplished, Willie heard the voice of his father ask in tones - wherein suspicion lurked:

But William Channing Lawrence had passed around the corner of the barn. He had no curiosity to ascertain what would ensue if he remained. He knew. And, besides, he was struggling with duty and desire.

On the one hand he could hear the voice of Duty calling in clarion tones from the potato-bin; on the other was the lure of Clark's woods, where in a little brook many hungry trout lay in wait. He felt in his pocket. Yes, the line was there. Although Paradise, disguised in the habiliment of a circus, had been irretrievably lost, sanctuary from the wrath to come abode temporarily in the sylvan shades.

to rest,

within:

Another school year has begun. Both of our normal schools are overcrowded, with prospective teachers unable to find housing in dormitories and forced to get less out of their course because floating on the edge of the current of school life, rather than in the full stream. Requests for money to build new dormitories at Plymouth and Keene are likely to come before the next General Court.

Our institutions of collegiate rank are victims of the same overcrowd

ing, New Hampshire College, grown in plant and efficiency to proportions of which we may be proud, has over 1,000 students, more than she can care for to the best advantage. Dartmouth, after two or three decades of tremendous pansion, finds herself in a condition. requiring the taking of stock.

ex

At the opening of the Dartmouth year, President Hopkins startled the student body (and the country as well) by this statement:

"Too many men are going to college.

The opportunities for securing an education by way of the college course are definitely a privilege and not at all a universal right. The funds available for appropriation to the uses of institutions of higher learning are not limitless and can not be made so, whether their origin be sought in the resources of public taxation or in the securable benefactions for the enhancing of private endowments.

"It consequently becomes essential that a working theory be sought that will cooperate with some degree of accuracy to define individuals who shall make up the group to whom, in justice to the public good, the privilege shall be extended, and to specify those from whom the privilege should be withheld.

"This is a two-fold necessity, on the one hand, that men incapable of profiting by the advantages which the college offers, or

indisposed, shall not be withdrawn from useful work to spend their time profitlessly, in idleness acquiring false standards of living, and on the other hand that the contribution which the college is capable of making to the lives of competent men and through them to society shall not be too largely lessened by the slackening of pace due to the presence of men indifferent or wanting in capacity."

In the nation-wide discussion that followed Dr. Hopkins' revolutionary statement, there was apas disapproval. proval as well Some educators deny that there are too many college men, yet there are many close observers who agree that in our colleges there are a surprisingly large percentage of those who cannot, or will not, profit by an attempt to master the education proThe vided by such institutions. shrewdest critics of Dr. Hopkins point out the fact that, granting his premise, some test must be found satisfactorily to determine those eligible to the "aristocracy of brains” to which he would restrict the privileges of our costly higher education.

Some of the undergraduate comment upon the situation has so much common sense as to deserve mention. It is to the effect that no college should admit more students than may be given the full advantages of life in dormitories, commons and chapel, and no more than, with the existing plant, may be given instruction in groups small enough to get the maximum individual benefit with the minimum of the defects of mass education.

The Town of Dublin celebrated on October 12, the hundredth anniversary of its library, said to be the oldest public library in the United States. Prior to 1822, there existed in many town libraries owned by private societies, but not open

free to the public. Dublin had two such, each with a few hundred volumes one owned by a society of men, the the other by a society of women. The fact that gives Dublin distinction is that in 1822 the two libraries were united as one, augmented, and made available to all of the citizens of the community. The united library was at first known as the Dublin Juvenile Library, and was intended primarily to encourage the education of children. The leading spirit in the movement was the Reverend Levi W. Leonard, who became the first volunteer librarian. Dublin and the state do well to mark this anniversary year. It is worth notice. that the adjoining town of Peterborough in 1833 organized the first free public library to be maintained by taxation.

It is an encouraging sign that the people of New Hampshire are each year doing more to make the outdoor attractions of our state more available. Last month State Forester Foster told in this magazine about the new Willey House Cabins which will do much to encourage enjoyment of the grandeur of the Crawford Notch. The Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, besides opening up the Lost River to many thousands of visitors annually, has co-operated with the state in making public reserves in various beauty spots, notably the tops of Monadnock, Sunapee and Kearsarge.

Within a few weeks the state has received from Mr. Joel H. Poole, in memory of his son Arthur, the gift of a strip of land for road purposes which will make the Monadnock reservation more accessible. During Old Home Week the Tory Hill Woman's Club started an enterprise to repair the old road on the Warner side of Kearsarge. Everybody took hold with a will.

Some gave money, some contributed labor,

others lent horses, teams, transportation, tools. A road-making bee was held. The result is an automobile road to the Halfway House, which will doubtless next year be continued to the "Garden," where the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests has located a log cabin. One ambitious automobile reached that spot this fall.

and

The year has also seen a beginning of the work on the projected trail to connect Monadnock Sunapee Mountains by way of the state forest acquired in Washington last year. The trail will within a few years be an actuality, and may then be continued to Kearsarge, whence its next objectives should be Ragged and the state forest on Cardigan. Not many years hence the Granite State may by trail thus lure the tramper from the Massachusetts line and connect him by the White Mountain trails with the rugged north-land of New Hampshire, thence across to join the splendid Green Mountain trail of Vermont.

Politics in New Hampshire shows signs of off-year anaemia. It seems impossible for the average voter to acquire enthusiasm about home problems, even when there is to be elected a legislature which will have to deal with rather unusual questions of taxation and budget. Both political parties, at their late September elections, adopted platforms setting forth at length their claims to the voter's confidence and their aims for the future. The Republicans cite the record of Governor Brown's administration in keeping every state department and institution within its appropriation, in carrying the new Portsmouth bridge to its present stage without issuing the bonds provided for that purpose, and in reducing the state debt by more than a million dollars.

The main line of cleavage between the parties is upon the forty-eight hour question. The Democrats declare unequivocally for the immediate enactment of a law making forty-eight hours. the maximum working-week for women and childrn. The Republicans concede the ideality of such a law, but raise the question of its practical bearing upon local industries competing with those in which a longer week obtains in other states. They favor a national forty-eight hour law, and advocate a special legislative committee to investigate and report, during the next ssssion of our General Court, the facts which bear upon the advisability of New Hampshire enacting a similar State law.

Both parties are making special efforts to reach and organize the new women voters. If there be any apathy among the freshly enfranchised, it will not be due to lack of encouragement. The non-partisan League of Woman Voters is working throughout the state to arouse interest and intelligence in the exercise of the franchise. The most outstanding example of their activities was a recent school of citizenship in Keene.

An interesting by-product of a sluggish campaign was the situation resulting from the defeat of Fred A. Jones by John W. Barker for the Republican nomination in the fifth senatorial district. Soon after the primary, doubt was expressed as to the eligibility of Mr. Barker to serve. The constitution of New Hampshire provides that no person shall be a senator unless he has for seven years next before his election been an inhabitant of the district.

Mr. Barker, a native of England, had been actually resident in Lebanon for more than seven years, but had completed his naturalization only two years ago. The question of

eligibility turned upon the interpretation of the word the word "inhabitant." Should it be defined as "resident" or "citizen"?

The Republican State Committee discussed the problem. At first the friends of Mr. Jones were inclined to press the question, but, it appearing that Mr. Barker did not doubt his eligibility and Mr. Jones having declined to make it a personal matter, the committee decided to do nothing. Upon this an individual voter in the district petitioned the Ballot Commissioners to keep the name of Mr. Barker from the ballot.

It was late October before a hearing was had and a decision reached. The Commissioners, Attorney General Oscar L. Young and Harry F. Lake, Esq., (the third member of the board, Harry J. Brown, Esq., not sitting because of illness), decided adversely to Mr. Barker.

The question was immediately taken to the Supreme Court upon a writ of certiorari. There was a hear

ing on October 30, and an opinion was handed down on the following day declaring Mr. Barker ineligible. Immediately upon the decision of the Ballot Commissioners, the Republican State Committee nominated Ora A. Brown of Ashland to fill the vacancy, and as a result of the Supreme Court decision his name will go before the voters of the fifth district on November 7.

The strike situation, as it affects New Hampshire is still far from clarified. Coal is being mined, but not much is yet available; so that good old-fashioned wood-smoke is seen ascending from the majority of the chimney-spouts. As the weather grows colder the pinch will become felt.

The railroad strike is not settled in New Hampshire, whatever be the situation elsewhere. The Concord engine-house and shops being the largest in the state, the capital city