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coln Hall. His next letter was in reference to His last gift and last letter came after the exthat, and is as follows: citing political campaign of four years ago.

"NEW YORK, Nov. 29, '87. "MY DEAR MR. DODGE: I have purchased from Mr. J. S. Hartley a bronze cast of the Lincoln head, duly framed, and suitable for hanging up indoors in Lincoln Hall. . . . I hope it will reach you before Christmas.

"Will you kindly thank Mr. E. H. Fairchild for his letter of Thanksgiving Day, and tell him that he is unduly alarmed as to my health? As Mr. Lowell said yesterday, in his address on Copyright, 'We are all of us, always, just beginning to live.'

"I am very sincerely yours,

"ROSWELL SMITH."

Besides the new building, we received from him four thousand dollars for current expenses.

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FROM THE REV. DR. EDWARD B. COE'S FUNERAL ADDRESS. IT was a fortunate circumstance, but it was not an accident, that during a visit to Europe, twenty years ago, his thoughts were turned toward the literary project with which, in its subsequent development, his name will long be associated. I say it was not an accident, because, as one who knew him well has stated, "to be identified with a business which had to do with books and writers had always been his ambition." In other words, he was looking for a field of wider and more direct influence and usefulness than that which he had thus far found. Though he was not himself a practised writer, he had a quick sympathy with those who like himself were men of ideas and earnest desire to promote the intellectual as well as the moral life of the community.

The opportunity was precisely that which would best meet his genius and his tastes, and give free play to his peculiar talents. It brought him into intimate relations with intellectual and scholarly men, whom he needed and who needed him. With rare tact and discernment he left them free to do their work in their own way, making innumerable suggestions, but never giving orders, while he inspired them with his own

confidence and enthusiasm, and placed at their service his extraordinary executive ability. He had the utmost possible faith in his associates, in himself, in the work which they were together doing, in the public on both sides of the Atlantic, and in the certainty of ultimate success. He never lost heart in the darkest times. He assumed immense responsibilities without hesitation. He worked his way steadily through difficult negotiations. His plans were often startling in their boldness, but his patience and perseverance were equal to his audacity, and the novelty of his methods was sometimes the secret of their success. In his dealings with other men he was high-minded and generous often beyond the strict demands of justice, giving more than he was compelled or asked to give, from a conviction that the Golden Rule may safely be applied to mercantile transactions. There was, if I may judge correctly, something statesmanlike in his conduct of the business interests of which he was at the head, while there was also something romantic in his feeling about them. To his mind The Century Co. was not a concern for making money, but an organization for the advancement of civilization.

TOPICS OF THE TIME.

Roswell Smith.

only necessary for the present writer to record here the grief of all associated in business with our late President

BEHIND every successful enterprise one may be sure at his untimely departure, and to say a word regarding

there is somewhere at work, even if not always prominently in sight, a powerful personality. The personal force-alert, original, full of initiative, insistence, and enthusiasm—which has been from the beginning, in 1870, up to the past year or two of illness, behind the publishing corporation now known as The Century Co. was that of Roswell Smith. Others may express in these pages their impression of the man in the various phases of his aspiration and activity. It is, perhaps,

especially his relation to THE Century MagaziNE. We do believe that Roswell Smith came nearer realizing the strictest editorial idea of what the publisher and chief owner of a periodical should be to that periodical than has often been seen in the literary and publishing world. Trusting the persons chosen to take editorial charge in a manner to call out all the energies and abilities of those so generously confided in, he spent no part of his energy in thwarting or

diverting their control, but set all his great strength to the task of enthusiastically coöperating with the plans of the magazine,-making possible, by his appreciation, courage, and loyal and liberal support, enterprises in their way of unprecedented cost and importance.

It was always an idea — always the ideal — that, appealing to his imagination, drew forth his deepest and most active sympathies. It was especially ideas of usefulness, of patriotism, of humanity, which commanded his most practical and zealous activities. The famous War Series of THE CENTURY could not have been carried on with a publisher of a timid and timeserving disposition. The authorized Life of Lincoln was made available to the great mass of the people largely through the liberality and determination of Mr. Roswell Smith. When George Kennan was gathering in long and painful journeys the material for his great work on the Siberian Exile System, his most frequent and most sympathetic correspondent, outside of his own family, was the busy President of The Century Co.

He not only earnestly supported the most costly and wide-reaching plans, but from his direct suggestion came magazine enterprises of breadth and moment. Nor was it only in large matters that his mind was active and helpful. In many details connected with the appearance of the magazine he made improvements: for nothing to him was unimportant that tended in any way to the perfection and good repute of the publications with which The Century Co. was identified. More important than everything else,—in addition to his sympathetic attitude, his suggestiveness, his faculty of invention, the fertility of his resources, there was for all near him a constant inspiration and spur to highest effort coming from his fervid faith in God and man; his unswerving confidence in the success of generous methods and lofty and beneficent ideas.

---

To its President The Century Co. was truly an individual, beloved as a favorite child. There was hardly a waking hour of his life, especially after the company entered upon a separate existence, in which he was not pondering on and planning for its enterprises present and to come. When physical infirmity weighed heavily upon him, in the last weeks of his long and heroically endured illness, his failing power was expressed by himself with manly and smiling pathos, when, sitting one day in his old chair in his own office, he said, “ My only contribution to The Century Co. now is one of curiosity." He, and all of us, well knew that when such words could be truly spoken the end must indeed be near.

It seems hard that there should not have been for him an old age of rest and satisfaction in witnessing and enjoying the fruits of such devoted labors,—labors which were indeed essentially public in their scope and intention. But, after all, our friend and associate had in his life the reward of clean, congenial, and successful work. He took his pleasure in his labors as they went on; and he had so poured his individuality into the corporate life which was largely his creation that he seemed to see much of his own personal energy and individuality existing along the future in forms of usefulness to mankind.

Roswell Smith had somewhat of the reserve attributed to the New England character, and his mind was concentrated on the principal work of his life with peculiar intensity. Yet collectively and individually his

business associates and employees have all and each at various times, and in many an hour of stress and trouble, found in him a kind, sympathetic, and generous friend. There are men of letters in this country whose lives have been made smoother and brighter for his faith in them, and his friendly and substantial encouragement, proffered in all respect and manliness. He has done a good work in many ways; in a sense no one can "take his place"; but the spirit in which he labored will not soon fail of inspiration for his survivors and successors.

It was part of the late President's prevision and care that his large interests should remain within the company, and that the business management should continue in the hands of his trained and chosen associates.

Growth and Change in College Education.

IN an extremely interesting and valuable paper which he published in the February number of "The Educational Review," Mr. Arthur M. Comey showed that the number of male students attending 282 colleges in various parts of the United States had nearly doubled in the decade between 1880 and 1890, though the increase in population during the same period had been only 25 per cent. He showed also in a series of clear and most carefully compiled tables that between 1850 and 1890 the number of male students in these colleges had increased from 8837 to 31,359; that while the increase in population during that period had been 165 per cent., the increase in the number of students had been 254 per cent.; and that the number of students per 100,000 of population had risen from 38.1 in 1850 to 50.3 in 1890.

In making up his tables, Mr. Comey omitted all students in the preparatory courses of many Southern and Western colleges, and all women in the coeducational institutions. He omitted also a few colleges on account of low standard, and all the scientific schools, though he included scientific students in colleges. Had he included the scientific schools, which have been organized almost wholly since 1860, the percentage of increase would have been far greater than appears from his tables. His conclusions are that the "colleges of the country are growing rapidly," that "there is at the same time a decided tendency to raise the standard both for admission and for the courses of study," and that these facts justify "even optimistic views of the future of higher education."

The figures are certainly encouraging, as showing a constantly increasing desire among the youth of the country to pursue their studies beyond the limits of the public schools and seminaries. But what does Mr. Comey mean by the term "higher education"? That there is a wide difference of opinion among professional educators themselves on this point is made evident by an article which President Gilman of Johns Hopkins University has in the same number of "The Educational Review," wherein he takes issue with General Francis A. Walker, President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; David S. Jordan, President of the new Stanford University in California; and Professor Goodwin of Harvard, as to what should constitute a liberal education. General Walker had contended that the scientific schools were doing a work "not surpassed, if indeed equaled, by that of the classical colleges,"

and are turning out "better-educated men, in all that the term implies, than the average graduate of the ordinary college." Messrs. Jordan and Goodwin had contended that old ideas as to what constituted a liberal education had passed away, and new ideas, adapted to the demands of the time, had taken their place. The new ideas, briefly summarized, are: not to compel all students to take the same course of study, with Latin

no matter whether it be acquired in the oldest or young-
est university, in the old-fashioned college or the modern
school of science. I may go further and say that "liberal'
culture may be acquired without the aid of seminaries;
scholars may appear in the walks of business, in the soli-
tudes of rural life, on the boards of a theater, in politics,
duced by narrow, cramping, or servile training.
in philanthropy, in exploration; and they cannot be pro-

All this amounts to saying that the best college course and Greek as the basis, but to permit each student to is only a beginning, and that its main purpose, its high

take the course which best suits his tastes and abilities, and to supply for each student the best facilities for pursuing the course of his choice.

It is not our purpose to follow the ramifications of this discussion, or to attempt to decide which method of education can more accurately be pronounced

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est achievement, is to start the student in the right di-
rection. "Culture," says Matthew Arnold, "is read-
urpose to guide it, and with
ing; but reading with a
system. He does a good work who does anything to
help this; indeed, it is the one essential service now
to be rendered to education." That is what the college
ought to teach first of all, and if the instruction be thor-
oughly imparted, the foundation of a liberal education
is laid. Montaigne said he read books that from them
he might learn "how to live and die well." Every

"higher or "liberal." The great and encouraging facts which Mr. Comey's statistics and the discussion disclose are that the colleges of the country are attracting a steadily increasing number of students, and are making such changes in their methods of instruction as enable them to extend their influence to fields hith-student who is taught to read or study with a purpose erto not occupied by them. Upon one point the disputants are agreed, and that is that the main object of education is to make good citizens. General Walker calls it adding to the "manhood and citizenship of the country," and President Gilman, in a passage which deserves to be put on record as a comprehensive and accurate definition, says of "liberal education":

In every "liberal" course these elements should be combined mathematics, ancient and modern languages and literature, science, history, and philosophy. The more one has of all these elements the better. It is obvious also that a "liberal" education is not to be limited by the period devoted to the college course or a course in technology. It begins in the nursery, it goes on in the domestic circle, it continues through school, college, and university, and ends only with life. All science, all knowledge, all culture, not essential to bread-winning, is "liberal,"

finds in his books the secret of how to live and die well; that is, learns how to become a good citizen, that most valuable influence in a community. He carries into life a deference to acquired knowledge, a respect for the teachings of experience, which are of incalculable value among a people prone to think that they can solve all problems for themselves, and have no need to profit by the results of similar experiments by the generations that have preceded them.

Especially is this true of the study of political science, to which many of our colleges, following the excellent example of Harvard and Columbia, are devoting increasing attention. In this they are doing the whole country a most useful and greatly needed service: a subject which we shall soon discuss in its bearings on public life.

OPEN LETTERS.

The Pressing Need of Forest Reservation in the
Sierra.

WONE too early comes the announcement that the Interior Department has under consideration the establishment of a very extensive forest reservation in California's Sierra Nevada, to the south of the Yosemite National Park, and including the wonderful King's River Cañon described by Mr. John Muir in the November CENTURY.

It will be remembered that by a recent enactment of Congress the President was authorized to withdraw from the offerings of public lands for sale those districts where the preservation of the forests might appear, in his discretion, to be necessary for the security of the supply of water for irrigation and other purposes. Under that act an important addition has been made to the Yellowstone National Park, and, more lately, a territory largely exceeding a million acres in extent has been designated as a reservation in the State of Colorado, the area thus set apart covering much of the higher watershed of the Colorado River. The projected new reservation in California would perhaps be the most

notable of all these judicious undertakings, whether the extent of domain be considered, or attention be turned to the varied splendor of the scenery, or to the effect as insuring a permanent yield of lumber according to the efficiency of the system of forestry, or yet to the influence on agriculture in the lowlands. As contemplated, the proposed reservation would include the sources to which the upper San Joaquin Valley, comprising the great counties of Fresno, Tulare, and Kern, must forever look for a supply of water for that irrigation which is necessary to successful agriculture in this land of inadequate rainfall. It would also include those steep declivities on which, if denuded of their restraining vegetation, the melting snows and falling rains would unite to form torrents that would, a little later, take the form of such devastating floods as have but recently taught the Spaniards how Nature revenges herself on those who trifle with her forces.

At present the population of the whole valley region overlooked by the proposed reservation is probably not more than 70,000 in number. Under comprehensive irrigation the land would easily be able to support sev

eral millions of inhabitants, and all in a high average of rural or urban comfort. Even a cursory inspection of the wealth of those irrigated oases which have been created at intervals along the line of the railway, during the last dozen of years, is enough to carry conviction that the head-gate of the irrigation ditch is the door to a future whose magnificence cannot easily be overdrawn by the liveliest fancy. In the county of Fresno alone there are now about 150,000 acres actually watered by means of canals, and thus brought into an admirable condition of prolific and highly remunerative husbandry. The canals existing would suffice for the irrigation of several times the acreage named, and the counties of Tulare and Kern are ambitious rivals of their neighbor in the matter of profitable agriculture through the vivifying influence of the ditch. Yet all that has been accomplished and the vastly greater results that may be accomplished in the proximate future are imperiled to satisfy the desire of a few men for gain, and by the supineness of the many in the face of dangers that promise disaster to the well-being of their children, if not of themselves.

That the hazards which have accumulated under the policy of indifference are not imaginary is perfectly well known to such persons as have considerable knowledge of the mountains. Not long ago one of the bestinformed landed proprietors in the San Joaquin Valley related that he had traveled over about 700 square miles of the King's River watershed, and had rarely seen a tree under thirty years of age. The age of the youngest trees at all commonly noticeable would therefore nearly coincide with the invasion of the mountains by numerous bands of sheep, and with the attendant fires due to negligence or deliberate incendiarism. With no younger growth coming on and with the mature or maturing trees rapidly vanishing in flame, or by natural causes, it is easy to foresee what will soon be the fate of those forests (which are occasionally described as "inexhaustible") under the policy of public inaction. Add to the destructive agencies already at work the uncontrolled operations of lumbermen, who are only now beginning to push their industry on a formidable scale in the part of the Sierra in question, and the disappearance of the forests that stand guard over the welfare of the San Joaquin Valley becomes a supposition whose realization may well be witnessed by men now long past youth. "If the policy heretofore followed," says an unusually well-informed correspondent of the writer, "be much longer continued, we shall have so denuded the rock of our mountain ridges that within half a century all our streams will be torrents for a few brief weeks in spring and dry beds of sand all the rest of the year. Massive reservoirs of masonry will have to be built at vast expense to take the place of the beautiful reservoirs of pine and redwood which nature created." With reference to the advisability of the projected reservation, the present writer was led of late to make some extended inquiry concerning the opinions held by men of acknowledged enlightenment, of large views, and whose interests in the San Joaquin Valley are of undoubted extent. The result of this inquiry was to disclose a uniform agreement in the idea that there should be an immediate abandonment of the old policy of laisser-faire. As fairly representative I quote, by permission, the substance of the reply made by Hon. C. C. Wright, a gentleman known to all Californians

as the author of the Wright Irrigation Act, whereby the system of irrigation districts sustained by public taxation has been introduced as one of the most noteworthy parts of the order of the State. Mr. Wright's letter says:

I think it would be universally admitted that the existing supply of water in the streams, if all conserved, is sufficient to meet present and, very likely, prospective uses, so far as the demands of irrigation go. The paramount importance of comprehensive irrigation is almost, if not quite, unanimously admitted. The interests to be served by the removal of the forests, as compared with those to be secured by comprehensive irrigation in the great valleys of California, are insignificant. So far as additional reservations will secure the use and deter the abuse of forest areas, they ought to be established. I consider Federal control and action as the only practicable means of affording the protection needed.

To the San Joaquin Valley the subject of transportation by water is second in importance only to that of irrigation. Such transportation will, however, soon be listed among the dim recollections of things that were, or that might have been, unless prompt measures shall be taken to restrain the flood-borne detritus from the hills, now laid bare by the hoof of the sheep and by fire. As a sufficient warning of the most practical description, one need only point to the ruined navigation of the Sacramento River, and to the buried farms lining the course of that stream, which were, not so many years ago, the pride of northern California. The whole of that melancholy and calamitous work is the result of causes strictly analogous to the denudation which has made such progress on the sierras that slope toward the valley of the San Joaquin, and which has already had the most injurious effects on the navigation of the river of that name. There is one stretch of thirteen miles where the detritus from the mountains has during the last few years formed bars that divert the water into sloughs leading off from the main channel. On this stretch boats drawing six feet of water had formerly no difficulty in navigating. I am informed by a letter of Mr. H. J. Corcoran, of Stockton (who represents the river navigation interests), that the channel has now a maximum depth of thirteen inches. It is perhaps needless to add that Mr. Corcoran "is in every case in favor of the preservation of the forests."

In the case of the Sacramento River the National Government has interfered to prevent further destruction; but before the interference the damage had reached such an extent that if a practicable remedy be at all applicable it will be attained only by the means of heavy pecuniary expenditure. It is not too late to save the San Joaquin. Little money will be needed for the undoing of the mischief already wrought. And for the future there need be no fear if the plain, common-sense method of precaution be adopted,- the method of maintaining at every point the only means to wit, forest vegetation- by which the mountains can be prevented from becoming the worst foe, instead of the best friend, of the inhabitants of the valley.

After nearly six continuous years spent in the Sierra, the writer entertains not a shadow of doubt of the truth of what is said by Mr. Emil Newman, of Porterville, Tulare County:

I, for one, believe that the reservation of forest lands in the mountains, and intelligent legislation in regard to the preservation of the forests, are absolutely necessary in order to prevent this valley from reverting to desert conditions.

George G. Mackenzie.

With a Rosebud.

THIS fair rosebud, Elsie, see,
Gathered by my hand for thee,
While the morning yet was new,
And its leaves all wet with dew.
It may die but if for thee,

Who would not the rosebud be?
Shall I tell thee to my thought

Whom its fresh young beauty brought ?-
Conscious that in turn to thee
It can bring no thought of me.
By this token know, young maid,
Rosebuds are not all that fade.
Wouldst thou quite believe, if told,
That I was not always old?
Yet the floweret prithee take;
Wear it for the giver's sake.
Though it breathe to thee in sooth,
But of beauty, now, and youth,
When it fades into the sear,

It may then suggest me, dear.

Charles Henry Webb.

To an Old Guitar. 1892.

HER slender fingers, jewel-drest, Stole softly to and fro,

And in and out among the strings, To tunes of long ago.

The golden ribbon kissed her throat
Where fain his lips would be—
Oh, how he loved her very breath,
His sweet maid Marjorie!

In velvet drest, with silken hose,
And jewels not a few,
Ah, what a cavalier was he,

In seventeen-ninety-two!

My songs are not so quaintly sweet
As those she sang to him,
My love and I no picture make

Like theirs, with time grown dim.

But music lingers still in thee,

And love is just as strong,

As when sweet Marjorie was young And tuned thee to her song.

My love and I will pass away

Some day, and then will be Another hand to touch thy strings, And find thy melody.

Do you not wonder, old guitar,
Whose hand 't will be, and who
Will sing the sweet love-songs to him
Of nineteen-ninety-two?

I am not sad to think it true
(The present is so sweet),
That Joy and Sorrow must unite
To make thy chords complete.

For what is Sorrow, Pain, or Death
To us whose souls are strong!
Time cannot put an end to thee,
Dear Life, and Love, and Song!

Annie Louise Brakenridge.

Grave Matters.

W'EN dis ol' man comes ter die,
Death is mos' unsightly.
Doan' yo' lay me in no room
Wid de pull-down curtain gloom:
'T ain' de place de dead should stay,
W'en de sperit 's gone away,

Off ter whar hit 's brightly.

'Struct de pa'son 'fo' he 'gins,

Tech de subject tritely;
'Ca'se hit 's gen❜ly undastood
I hain't been so pow'ful good;
And fo' him ter shout and groan
'Bout me settin' roun' de frone,
'Low hit won't look rightly.

W'en de fun'al 'gins ter start,
Shove mah box in tightly.
'Member I is in de hearse;
Yo' am comin', but I 's firs'.
Ef de mo'ners grieve and mope,
So 's ter make de hosses lope,
Keep de team up sprightly.

Lowah me slowly in de grave;
Drap de earf down lightly.
Need n't linger long, and, say,
'Spense wid prayer 's de better way;
Don't keer ef nobody sings.

Jes ter know de chu'ch bell rings

'S gwine ter please me might❜ly.
Ben King.

Aphorisms for Men and Women.

HE who sues for a woman's favor in the guise of a slave, is apt, the suit won, to appear in his native char. acter of savage.

MANY a woman is unhappy because she has not married the man that she loves. But often she would be infinitely unhappier if she had married him.

FRIENDSHIP frequently ripens into love; but very seldom does love react into friendship. When it does, it is permanent.

MATCHES made in Heaven frequently turn out as if they had been matches made in the other place.

MEN are never such heroes, or such fools, as in the presence of women.

MANY women wish either to tyrannize over men, or to be tyrannized over by them. Thus men, the reverse of despotic, are often constrained to be despots in order to have peace.

MANY a man's love is but gratified egotism; many a woman's love only the confirmation of her vanity.

IF tenderness be passion in repose, passion must be tenderness aroused. Tenderness, indeed, is the source and sanctity of the deepest passion.

No man or woman can be all that he or she should be who has not the qualities of both sexes.

THE one thing a woman cannot forgive in a man is weakness. The one thing a man cannot forgive in a woman is strength.

THE DE VINNE PRESS, NEW YORK.

Junius Henri Browne.

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