Senate fill sixty-six closely printed columns of the « Con- fectly well known by those who were considering it. gressional Globe, and those in the House seventy-eight Speaking of the «impossibility of retaining the double columns. If that be «secrecy » and « stealth,» what standard,» he said: would constitute publicity?

The values of gold and silver continually fluctuate. There is abundant testimony also that the meaning of You cannot determine this year what will be the relathe bill was at no time concealed, or sought to be con- tive value of gold and silver next year. Hence all excealed. Mr. John J. Knox, who was then deputy-comp- coin which shall be a legal tender for all others, and

perience has shown that you must have one standard troller of the currency, prepared the bill and accompa- then you may promote your domestic convenience by nied it with a communication, which stated distinctly having a subsidiary coinage of silver which shall cirthree times that its provisions discontinued the coinage of deemable at its face value by the government.

culate as legal tender for a limited amount, and be rethe silver dollar piece. He had previously submitted the bill to boards of trade, chambers of commerce, professors

The bill passed the House in May, 1872, and was sent in colleges, mint officials, and other experts, and persons back to the Senate, which had passed it in 1871, with best competent to pass judgment upon it, and the replies certain amendments. It came up again for final passage, of these authorities were included in the communication

or concurrence in the amendments, in the Senate in to Congress. Mr. Knox said subsequently, in regard to January, 1873, and was passed without a division. In the charge of «stealth,» that it «has no foundation in his speech explaining its provisions, Senator Sherman fact,» that « it is not probable that any act passed by said: any Congress ever received more care in its preparation,

The bill proposes a silver coinage exactly the same or was ever submitted to the criticism of a greater as the French and what are called the associated nations number of practical and scientific experts.» Ex-Senator

of Europe, who have adopted the international standard

of silver coinage; that is, the dollar (two half dollars) Edmunds, who was a member of the Senate during the provided for in this bill is the precise equivalent of a three years in question, said many years later, when 5-franc piece. asked if it was generally understood at the time that

The final debate in the Senate on the bill filled ninethe bill put the country upon the single gold standard:

teen columns of the « Globe.» Certainly. All the nations with which we did busi

At the time the law was passed, the silver dollar was ness - or the most of them – were going to the golil standard alone; and the tendency of all trade pointed

an obsolete coin. Senator Edmunds said, in a published to that as the inevitable basis of values.

interview from which we have quoted above: But the strongest evidence against the stealth charge For many years silver, save as a subsidiary currency, is to be found in the speeches made in both Houses had been practically unknown, when the act of 1873 was

passed. After 1845, or thereabouts, the silver dollar while the bill was under consideration. In January, disappeared, and was an unknown quantity. 1872, the bill was before the House, and was debated for nearly two whole days. Congressman Kelley, of

The reason was that it was worth three or four cents Pennsylvania, made a long speech in explanation of its more than the gold dollar, and hence refused to circulate. provisions, giving a detailed account of the authorities Instead of being demonetized by the act of 1873, it had to whom it had been submitted for opinion, saying that demonetized itself about 1845, or a quarter of a century its only object was to provide for the « integrity of the earlier. Instead of the passage of that act taking half coinage, and adding:

he lived in quarters so restricted that there was no ness, but from sheer exhaustion induced by unfavorable other means of storage, but straightway formed the surroundings. It was found that, upon the lowest aver. opinion that improving the homes of working people age, every worker lost about twenty days in the year was a fruitless task because of their misuse of such from this cause. One might go on multiplying such inimprovements.

stances, but it is not necessary to enforce the arguThough the tale may represent reality in isolated in- ment by cumulative citation. stances, as a generalization it is absolutely untrue. Wage-earners are vitally interested in the passage Even the dullest and lowest intelligence will, in time, re- and enforcement of wise sanitary laws. Bad sanitation spond to an ameliorated environment.

entails proportionally worse economic consequences to This is not a mere thesis. There is plenty of evidence them than to the more highly favored. They are also to sustain it. Lord Shaftsbury, who practically inter- more often the victims of sickness and epidemics, ested himself for more than sixty years in improving fostered by insanitary neighborhoods. The workingthe homes of the masses, said time and again that many man has a positive interest in using whatever political of the people who were in a filthy and deplorable con- power he possesses to secure legal remedies against undition had been made so by their surroundings, and inhabitable houses through expropriation laws such as that where their homes had been improved, they had those current in England, and the measure recently put been rescued from such conditions. Human nature is into operation by the Board of Health of New York imitative; the force of good example is catching. Lack City under the Tenement House law of 1895. Who, if of opportynity to lead a more civilized existence, not not wage-earners, are interested in the obliteration of the inclination to remain as they are, largely explains rookeries where the death rate equals seventy-three in the situation of the poorer elements amongst city dwel- a thousand? Whatever promotes better living condilers. Sir Sydney Waterlow cites the punctuality with tions, no matter whether it comes from legal enactment which the rents are paid to his corporation as evidence or private effort, will find support from wage-earners that people having good rooms are anxious to keep them. who appreciate their true interests. He believes that there is a growing desire for comfort- Important as are the physical and economic aspects able homes.

of this question, they are not the sole, perhaps they are Perhaps the most eloquent testimony to the desire of not even the chief, considerations. Ethical issues have wage-earners for a decent living environment is the greater ultimate significance. Many of our moral and prosperity attending model housing enterprises wherever social ills are more nearly connected with bad housing they have been established. An exhaustive study made than appears upon the surface. Take for example by Prof. E. R. L. Gould, covering all model enterprises drunkenness. How absurd to suppose that immoderate in existence in the larger cities of Europe and the liquor-drinking can be suppressed so long as people are United States, shows that eighty-eight per cent. of left to live in houses where lack of elementary sanitathem are earning dividends equal to or in excess of tion saps vitality, while noisomeness and unattractnormal commercial rates. Upwards of 160,000 people iveness impel a search for outside relief. It is entirely find shelter in the improved tenements of London. The unjust to suppose that only a low impulse to debauch or owners reap solid financial returns.

a reckless disregard of family duties leads wage-earners Prof. Gould's experience, based on more than three to contract the «saloon habit.) The utter dullness, years' study and investigation of this matter, has es- the lack of individuality in tenement-house existence, tablished the firm conviction that wage-earners feel a often lie back of the fatal temptation. positive interest in improved housing, and will cheer- Promiscuity in human bee-hives, rendering indepenfully take advantage of it whenever it is provided. dence and isolation impossible to the family, is a seri

What are the wage-earner's special interests in im- ous drawback. What may we legitimately expect from proved housing? In the first place, this class is vitally such conditions ? Not only can there be no developinterested in the conservation of health. Good health ment of domestic life, which in the words of Cardinal means earning power, and as working-men lead more Manning « creates a nation, but every member from or less of a hand-to-mouth existence, any loss of earn- earliest childhood is a prey to those forces which drag ing power is a serious matter. Lord Beaconsfield aptly down,-a stranger to those which uplift. Unwholesome voiced this truth in an address delivered at the opening sights and sounds fix themselves in the memories of of some new blocks of improved tenements in London. children ere infancy is really past. The exuberance He said «the health of the people is really the founda- of youth, finding no possibility of expression inside tion upon which all their happiness and their power de- the home, is poisoned by the philosophy of the streets. pends. Few realize the loss of productive energy Boys, while yet of tender age, are introduced to viciousthrough sickness brought about by bad living environ- ness and petty crime. Young girls from their earliest ments. Sir James Paget, the distinguished English teens engage in a struggle for moral preservation. physician, estimates that the whole population of Eng- Mothers, instead of finding wifehood and motherhood land between fifteen and sixty-five years old works in the sweetest of all human relations, are oppressed each year twenty millions of weeks less than they might to hopelessness, soured into ill-feeling or brutalized if it were not for sickness. He puts down the loss in- into a state of callous indifference. There is everyflicted on wage-earners at nearly fifteen millions of dol- where a distinct lowering, if not an entire loss, of lars annually. He refers simply to a purely prevent moral tone. able loss. Some years ago, the London health authorities With prospects of this sort, varying of course in de instituted inquiries in certain low neighborhoods to gree according to circumstances, can one say that estimate the value of labor lost in a year, not by sick- wage-earners, even of the lowest class, regard the outcome with equanimity? Are these fathers and mothers ments will help to make a new and better city; better, we so entirely different from the heads of more fortunately believe, both in health, morals, and the enjoyment of life. circumstanced homes ?

The principal agency now at work in this direction is the It is a most gratifying fact that along with the de- City and Suburban Homes Company, of which Prof. struction of the worst tenements in New York by the Gould, of Johns Hopkins, is the President, and Mr. A. opening of the new small parks, and by the condemna- W. Milbury the Secretary, Mr. R. Fulton Cutting being tion proceedings above referred to, an extensive move- the Chairman of the Board of Builders. This Company ment has been started looking to the building of model proposes to accomplish its philanthropy in a businesstenements. Under the new tenement-house laws every like way, which is, we believe, the best way for the pernew tenement must be better built than formerly,- manent success the permanent good influence - of with more light and air and safety from fire, – but the the enterprise. The example will surely be followed building on the voluntary principle (and not as in Eng- not only in New York, but in other crowded cities of land by the local government) of additional model tene- America.

a

Training Schools for Domestic Servants.

An ordinary dwelling-house might be utilized for the

school. The basement, which should be well lighted, is too late in the day to discuss the need of better could be fitted up as a laundry, capable of accommodatdomestic service in the United States. It is the one ing a large number of women, to be classified as they crying evil that besets society, and makes life a series advance in skill in the department. There must be a of makeshifts from the effects of which even the rich head laundress to look after those under her, and inare not exempt, while at some time or other, and in spectors to decide when a woman is capable of promomost families continually, every man, woman and child tion. In a city of 5000 inhabitants, such a laundry suffers more or less. Some day the American people might easily be made self-supporting. will realize what an intimate bearing this question has The first floor of the Training School could be devoted upon the national character as well as upon domestic to the cooking department. It should have several happiness. Systematic study of the subject will fol- kitchens where the women in different stages of adlow, and some of the vast energy that now goes into vancement could work, under an expert leader. The remedial charities will be directed to the solution of different departments in cookery could be made selfthis fundamental problem. For the present there seems supporting by having lunch-counters where men could to be only one remedy for the general situation, the go in with their dinner pails and have served to them Training School for Domestic Servants. It is the pur- from the kitchens of the less skilled pupils hot soup, pose of this article to make suggestions as to its range tea, coffee, and other plain food, while a restaurant of and character.

a better class might be sustained from the work of Such a school should be well organized and equipped those who were more thoroughly trained. Another for the thorough training of servants in all branches source of income might be secured by filling orders for of household work. In the first place it should have special dishes, or for whole meals. Setting a table, waitfacilities for teaching pupils how to bathe properly, to ing, washing fine china and glass, and polishing silver, care for their own bodies and for their own clothes. could be taught in connection with the restaurant. It should have different departments of training, one The upper floors should consist of a parlor, and varfor laundresses, another for chambermaids, another for ious apartments, where servants could be trained in waitresses, another for cooks, and another for general cleaning, dusting, window-washing, care of lamps, and housework servants, the last, of course, requiring a all kinds of second work. From this department serspecial condensed course. On entrance, young women

vants could be sent out by the hour or day to sweep, or girls should be classified as far as possible, accord- dust, or act as housemaids. ing to their general intelligence and ability as well as With the training given in this way a thoroughly the employment for which they wish to be fitted. The competent laundress, if she were a fairly industrious first work given should be the washing of the kitchen- and intelligent worker, should be graduated in perhaps ware, the sweeping of the kitchen, and the scrubbing six months. After the first month she might be paid of the floor and tables- in short, every pupil should be a small sum for her services. The cooks might also taught the work of a kitchen-maid. After that, even begin to have small wages after the first month. At though she intends to fit herself for a special depart least two years would probably be required for a cook ment, she should be taught to sweep and dust carpeted to be thoroughly trained in every branch of her work, rooms, and next to do plain washing and ironing, these from caring for her range to doing fine cookery. Those being among the things which every domestic should who show special capacity should be trained to take know how to do well.

the whole responsibility of planning and cooking elabo

a

rate luncheons and dinners, as well as in the mastery work of two who are untrained. It is doubtful whether of economical and healthful cookery for every-day life. middle-aged women, with their fixed habits, could be Wages should increase with gain in skill. The cook made into trained servants. We must depend upon the would find compensation for the longer course in the younger girls, and even they will probably respond high wages which her certificate would enable her to slowly to the demand, so that it will be the rising gendemand. The time required for training in any depart- eration that will reap the benefit of the purposed Trainment would depend upon intelligence and adaptability. ing School.

The certificates given by the Training School should One of the greatest difficulties in this matter is be proof of skill, competence, and integrity; they should created by the great mass of raw material which is state exactly what the servant is fitted to do, and they daily dumped upon our shores. Each one of these igshould be so conscientiously given that a housekeeper norant, stupid women expects to find a «place) with might rest assured that she knew exactly the capabil- good wages. To meet this difficulty the coöperation ities of the servant. Throughout the course earnest of mistresses is absolutely necessary; they must comeffort should be made to impress upon the pupils the bine and positively refuse to pay high wages to ignorant idea of moral obligation. Servants should be made to servants. If these girls cannot afford to fit themselves realize the dignity of their work, and the important for service in the Training School, they should not repart its faithful performance plays in the happiness ceive wages for at least three months, or possibly the and health of the home, and so of the nation. They slight remuneration of one dollar a week might be ofshould be taught that their work is as essential to the fered. Housekeepers must make these untrained ignormoral and physical well-being of humanity as that of ant women understand that they are receiving a favor the teacher, the doctor, or the minister, and that it de- in thus being taught. The line should be as closely mands just as much unselfishness and conscientious- drawn in domestic service as in other departments of ness. In this connection it might be well to establish skilled •labor. Until mistresses have such a sense of a training school for mistresses and other members of moral obligation as will make them refuse recommenthe family, that the idea of moral obligation might not dations to undeserving and untrained servants there will be all on one side.

the history of Greece superficially, but he knows it bet- overnight at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. They were Miss ter chan the history of England or the United States,) Libbie Cunningham of Cleveland, Ohio, Miss Mary Shelleads me to believe that the decided revolution in the ton (now Mrs. Huston) of Burlington, Iowa, and the relative position of English and United States history writer of this note. We were on our way from the to Greek and Roman history is not appreciated by the hospitals in Nashville, Tennessee, to Wilmington, North large majority of people. In the last ten years the his- Carolina, in answer to a call for volunteers who were tory of the United States has changed its place in the willing to take their lives in their hands, and, braving curricula of colleges and secondary schools. It occupied the perils of swamp fevers, help to care for the Andersonformerly an unimportant position, while such studies as ville prisoners who had been, or were about to be, transGreek and Roman history, algebra, geometry, etc., held ferred to that place. undisputed sway. But now these studies no longer ex- We had taken a train that stopped at Harrisburg clude English and American history from their proper rather than the through train, so that we might cross place. Somehow the interest, unity, inspiration, and the mountains in the day-time. The train for Washingeconomic teachings of United States history have been ton passed through Harrisburg at three o'clock in the recognized. The vast field of economic and historic morning. A few minutes before that hour we entered problems and solutions depicted in the career of this the hotel parlor and were greeted in a most excited country has not appealed in vain to teachers. Even in manner by a lady who had traveled in the same car with the graded schools more attention has been given to the us the day before. She had not taken a room, but, with subject than ever before. So that, taken all in all, the her little boy, had remained in the parlor all night. young man or woman who enters our colleges in the « I have had a frightful night!» she whispered. « There next five years will know something about the history is a crazy man lying on the sofa behind the door, and of this country, and know it well. .

he has acted so strangely and talked so wildly that I There has been a marked advance in the method of have been in terror! » study and manner of presentation. History, especially Our inquiries brought out the fact that in the early that of the United States, used to be presented as a part of the night he had kept running to the telegraph series of wars, with periodical elections of presidents; office every few minutes, saying that he expected great but now it is regarded as the development of a society, news. Finally he had come in, saying that it had come. not as a mere political organization, but as an advancing Lincoln and all his cabinet had been assassinated, and industrial organization, the social pressure of which de- he was rejoiced. Observing that the man was awake mands constantly increasing discipline and more and and looked sane enough, we inquired of him concerning more limitations of liberty. It is, in fact, the history of the shocking report he had made to our fellow-traveler, a people developing in a way never known before; not, « Yes, it is all true! Lincoln and his cabinet have been as in Europe, from non-liberty to greater freedom and assassinated, and I am glad of it!» he replied. democracy, but from liberty to greater and greater Unspeakably shocked at the man's insanity or delimitations on that liberty.

pravity, yet entirely unbelieving, we all left the hotel This change of view in regard to the presentation and at the same time. We observed that he climbed upon importance of the subject is due chiefly to the influence the platform of the coach in the rear of the one which of a few of the colleges in this country. Yale, Harvard, we entered. The cars were very much crowded, but our Princeton, Cornell, and a few others offer courses in Christian Commission badges secured for us everywhere United States history which go to the bottom of the courteous recognition. We made inquiry as to whether material. On the results of their investigation new any hint of the great calamity had been communicated views of our history have made themselves manifest. to the people on the train at any station on the road. At the present time the undergraduate at Yale is drilled Not a word of such import had met them anywhere, in Bryce's a American Commonwealth » and the history and we were laughingly told not to be frightened, that of the United States. In the graduate department of such absurd rumors could not possibly be true. the same university a two years' course in United States Lest we might have some lingering fears, one of the history is offered. The subject matter is taken from the gentlemen kindly proposed to make inquiries at the teleoriginal sources, so that a student pursuing it gets a graph office in York, Pennsylvania. His ghastly face thorough knowledge of the subject. Many students in and tearful eyes told a part at least of his dreadful story the universities doing this kind of work have gone out before his trembling lips could utter a word. Passento schools and colleges as instructors and professors. gers gathered about us in the wildest excitement.

The candidates for admission to the various colleges Every car was searched in vain for the man who had and universities in the near future will be prepared to been waiting impatiently in Harrisburg for news of the take up in an appreciative spirit the economic studies tragedy which he evidently knew was to be enacted in now offered. The ultimate meaning is better citizen- Washington. ship.