but distinctly specified that I might visit the grammar and primary rooms of a certain building and one kindergarten school.

My card of admission was very closely scrutinized by each teacher, and in several of the rooms I was treated with almost discourtesy. One teacher actually seated herself, and left me standing by the door.

From the confusion and excitement among the pupils caused by my presence, it was evident that visitors were unusual. I asked an official, Why all these difficulties in the way of visiting their schools? The reply was "that visitors distracted the attention of the pupils and interfered with their work, and that, if permitted to do so, the parents would visit the schools frequently, to the detriment of the schools."

This was a new view of the subject. In America the parents have always been urged to visit the schools; and the complaint of teachers is that parents do not show enough interest in the schools, and visit them so little.

In Paris I was obliged to give up visiting the "trade schools," because the application for a permission would have consumed too much time.

But in London the school-house doors are as wide open as in America, and the teachers are just as hospitable. It was only necessary to walk in and state one's interest in the work, to insure a cordial wel

come.

The "board schools" of England are schools for the lower classes. No family of any social position would think of sending their children to a "board school." I was attempting to explain our free school system, with its high schools, and the son of the merchant-prince and the son of the mechanic in the same classes, to a young man. He listened with undisguised disgust, and replied, "Think of Eton boys in such a rabble!"

England is emphatically an aristocratic country. In France the republic has established a school system very similar to ours; and in Germany the respect for scholarship is so great, and education is so much the main object of life, that fees in all schools are very small, so that rich and poor are found in all schools.

Miss Davenport Hill, a member of the London School Board, explained the Eng

lish system to me; and some account of the way England maintains her schools may be interesting.

The schools are supported, first by a government subsidy, of so much per capita. This amount depends, in a measure, upon the report of the government inspector,-an official entirely independent of the school board. If the work is found satisfactory, that school receives the maximum sum per capita. Second, by a tax collected from the rate-payers, the amount of which the school boards fix. These boards are elected by the rate-payers; and, if they are extravagant, the rate-payers can refuse to re-elect them. Third, by a fee varying from threepence to one shilling per week for each pupil. In the poorer districts of London, Miss Hill told me there were many bequests which they were able to use for school purposes, and so reduce the fees, and that there were many more bequests now useless, because of the conditions attached by the donors, which it is hoped can, by act of Parliament, be made available for school purposes. For instance, in one parish a very orthodox individual left a fund for the purchase of fagots for burning heretics; and, as heretics are no longer burned in England, no use can be made of this fund.

Accustomed to our American idea that it is the duty of the State to provide free education for the people, I could not understand the strong opposition on the part of very good people to the "Free Education Bill," which passed the House last July.

Education is compulsory in England; and yet hitherto a fee has been demanded for the tuition of the pupils. In this country we have always felt that it was only because the State supplied an education, free to all, that the State had the right to compel the attendance of the children.

A member of Parliament said to me of the "Free Education Bill": "This is a government bill, greatly opposed by many prominent Conservatives, but which will be carried, because the 'Home Rulers' will vote for it. It does not go far enough to suit us, but it is better than we could have expected from the government." This gentleman felt that the present system of fees was a real hardship to many. "Think," he

said, "of a man out of work, with four or five children in school, and the lowest fee twopence or threepence per week! He must send his children to school, and can only be relieved of the fee by going before the school board, proving himself a pauper, being thoroughly humiliated, and having what poor remnant of self-respect still remains to him crushed."

Last July the Factory Act was passed; i.e., a law raising the age at which children may be employed in factories and mines to twelve years. This was the first victory won by the Liberals in five years, and was received by them with great enthusiasm.

On the evening of the passage of this act I was in the House, or, rather, in the cage above the House, where the few women who are so fortunate as to secure an entrée are shut up, to peer through the grating at the House below. On this evening the bill to limit the hours of women engaged in laundries was before the House. This bill was the outcome of a huge mass meeting of laundresses in Hyde Park.

The subject was treated with the greatest courtesy by both sides of the House, and all the speakers claimed to be actuated by a sincere desire to do the best thing possible for these poor women, whose lot is, at best, hard. That debate in the House of Commons, by representative men of England, could not have failed to convince an unbiassed listener that even the "submerged tenth" have been able to make their cries heard in high places, and that the legislators of England realize that their cries must be regarded. One of the members who took part in this debate was a Welshman, sent by his trades-union, who had been a working miner up to the time he entered the House, -a man of real earnestness and ability.

It seems so out of all proportion that members of Parliament receive no pay, and yet the presiding officer receives a salary of six thousand pounds per annum and a fine residence.

Here, again, is the aristocratic spirit in government, in the theory that no money must be received by England's law-makers. Of course, many poor men are in Parliament whose expenses are borne by various associations. But all this falls upon the

working classes, because their candidates are often poor men.

Hyde Park is an example of the same spirit. No cabs are allowed in this fashionable drive in the afternoon. The result is that nowhere in the world can such a display of fine turn-outs, such elegantly dressed ladies, faultlessly attired gentlemen, and liveried servants, be seen as in Hyde Park during the season. But people without carriages are shut out of this gay concourse; and there is no such cheap enjoyment for the people as in the Bois de Boulogne or on the Pincian Hill at Rome, where the shabbiest vehicles jostle the fine carriages.

Indeed, in all the great parks of Europe, except Hyde Park, the cheap and comfortable little cabs are admitted.

On Sunday afternoon the "Ladies' Mile” in Hyde Park presents a brilliant spectacle. Here London society sits or walks, attired in goodly apparel. No one drives in London on Sunday: that is wicked, or unfashionable. Good and fashionable people walk in the park and display fine toilets; and it certainly furnishes an admirable opportunity to display good clothes. But the singular thing is that the portion of the park known as the "Ladies' Mile" is given up to the swells, and the unfashionable multitude never intrude upon this ground devoted to "society."

The

However, to me the fashionable quarter of the park was not nearly so interesting as the part where the "great unwashed" hold their meetings. Respectability and fashion are always a little tiresome, and well-dressed people look alike the world over. groups around the different speakers never ceased to attract me. There was one afternoon a socialist addressing a group; a Salvation Army meeting; religious controversialists denouncing each other; an atheist inveighing against all religious; a political orator; a young man reciting poetry; and an Anarchist, with red flag unfurled, denouneing the government, and calling upon his hearers to destroy the existing order of things. A policeman stood stolidly by the last-named speaker to see that he had the fair play so dear to Englishmen.

For studying all sorts and conditions of men, no place equals Hyde Park on a Sunday afternoon. MARIE C. REMICK.

ABIEL ABBOT LIVERMORE:

EIGHTY YEARS YOUNG.

A rounded life with ripened years, Softened with autumn's harvest glow, Made purer by its burning tears,

Made kindlier by its frost and snow,Grand prophet of the inner life,

Apostle of the truth of God, Thon makest peace flow out of strife, For weakness thou art staff and rod.

With pity filled for others' woes,

Low bent to lift the bowed and lost,
Whose throbbing heart for them o'erflows,
Aside thy pains and burdens tossed,
O brother, in thy heart's great love,

Yearning for souls enslaved by sin,
Thy strength flows down from founts above,
And Christ finds welcome room within!

Brought up at thy Gamaliel feet,

Anointed men have learned God's word, And, clothed in Truth's fair robe complete, Its message spoken has been heard. Strong, gentle, kindly, and serene,

Simple in thought, just, true, and wise, With learning wide and insight keen, Born was thy gospel from the skies.

So reverent, full of faith divine,

So moulded by the Christian thought, Whose vital flow is life's true vine,

The strength by which thy hand hath wrought,

Thy fourscore years and silvered hair

Are symbols of that holy crown
Of Faith and Hope and Love you wear,
On which the angel hosts look down.

O saintly soul, a halo bright
Enwraps, illumines, lifts thee far
Toward that divine, celestial light,

The brightness of thine own soul's star.
Accept, dear friend, the words, "Well done!"
For you and yours, this happy hour,
Whose course is toward the rising sun,
Whose glory is its growing power.
Unfinished is thy life-work here,
Immortal is thy coming sphere.

A. J. RICH.

A GLANCE AT THE STORY OF

HARVARD.*

ing." The young and brilliant Henry Vane, a graduate of Magdalene College, Oxford, was president of that court, and John Winthrop, a graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, was an active member. Soon after, Vane, a friend of Ann Hutchinson, named in Milton's sonnet as

"Vane, young in years, but in sage counsel old,"

returned to England to pursue his historic career for the liberty and emancipation of his race, and end that career by being beheaded on Tower Hill, leaving a name that stands on the roll of liberty's martyrs with Raleigh, Russell, and Sydney.

The name of Newtown was soon changed to that of Cambridge in affectionate remembrance of the Alma Mater of many of those emigrants. Of their number one hundred were graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, seventy being from Cambridge, of whom thirty were from Emmanuel College. It was in 1638 that the non-conforming clergyman, John Harvard, died at Charlestown, leaving half of his whole property and his entire library, about three hundred classic volumes, to the proposed college; and, as you well know, the name which our university has borne from that day to this is his. At the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary the undergraduates, in merry mood, displayed "Johnnie Harvard's Papas" in their torchlight procession, representing, in appropriate costume, a butcher, a cooper, and a grocer, two of whom, by tradition, were step-fathers; and it was from them that the estate was inherited, through his mother, that rendered John Harvard the wealthy clergyman of the young colony. Little is known further of him than that he was a graduate of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. A monument has been erected to his memory, with ap

It was in November, 1636, that the General Court of the colony of Massachusetts Bay passed the following vote: "The court agree to give £400 toward a school or college, whereof £200 shall be paid the next year and £200 when the work is finished, and the next court to appoint where and what build

*Part of an address delivered before the Harvard Club of Seattle, Wash., Oct. 9, 1891.

Edward Everett. Among the few books that were preserved from the destruction of the ibrary in 1764, only one of John Harvard's three hundred volumes remains, entitled "Christian Warfare against the World, Flesh, and Devil." In the grateful remembrance of mankind, how many names in all the annals of light and learning are sure to hold so firm a place as his? While the college was founded on Nov.

7, 1636, now recognized as Foundation Day, it was in 1650 that the permanent charter was granted, creating it a corporation with rights and franchises that have remained to the present day substantially unchanged. However, under the name of "The President and Fellows of Harvard College," minor statutes have been passed. The mode of selecting Overseers has been substantially modified, more especially in recent times, until now that authority is vested in the alumni of the college proper, while the Corporation proper is a self-perpetuative body of seven.

The three objects in view in founding the institution were to furnish the Commonwealth with knowing and understanding men, and the churches with an able ministry, and the Indians with Christian education. The first brick building erected was the Indian college, with dormitories for twenty occupants; and therein, subsequently, John Eliot's Bible was printed. Only two Indians ever availed themselves of the privileges of the college. According to the quinquennial catalogue, one Indian, coming from Martha's Vineyard, graduated in 1665, and died the next year. His nomen clarissimum, do not forget, was Caleb Cheehauteaumuck.

Of the twenty-two presidents of Harvard College, the first was John Dunster, of revered memory, an earnest, consecrated minister of the gospel. He devoted his time most assiduously to building up the school within and without, by contributions from other colonies; and the religious controversies relative to Pedobaptism, in which he became involved with the powers of State, have in no way shadowed his cherished memory. At the outset, the requisites for admission were rigidly prescribed: the student must be "able to read Tully or such like classics, and make and speak true verse and Latin prose, and decline the paradigms of nouns and verbs in the Greek tongue." The rules required that students should speak Latin in all college intercourse, and double penalties were imposed if excuses were not presented in that classic tongue. Hungry had to go the student, if the Roman language failed him at meal-time. The story is historic that the laugh went round when a professor, whose room was invaded by a wandering dog, exclaimed, "Exclude canem et, et

shut the door!" and one is reminded of Heine's saying that his only hatred of the Roman race was their invention of the Latin grammar.

Exercises were required by candle-light before breakfast in translating Hebrew Scripture into Greek; and at evening twilight it was English that was thus transmogrified. The humanities were thus rigidly pursued, and we are reminded of the scholar who regretted that his whole life had been spent upon Greek in general instead of upon verbs in mi.

We have the authority of the late poet and statesman, Lowell, in saying that the founding of Harvard College is second to no event in real importance that has happened on the Western Continent,-that it saved New England from being a mere geographical expression, and insured our intellectual independence of the Old World. Its immediate and natural effect was to create a body of educated and earnest men, maintaining high ideals of life and its purpose, fit and zealous to be educators of the people, as schoolteachers and as ministers of the gospel. To a large degree we may say that it is by this influence that New England assumed and has maintained its permanent influence in literature and thought. Thus we are reminded of Beecher's exclamation: "What! shut New England out in the cold! You may as well try to shut the cold out of New England."

Thus, having briefly told the story of the founding of our Alma Mater, let me glance at a few of the most important events in its subsequent history. It was in 1680 that the college was granted the revenues from the Charles River ferry. In Revolutionary times the undergraduates voted unanimously to take their degrees clad only in the manufactures of their native land; and, after Washington drew his sword under the Cambridge Elm as commander of the continental armies, the college authorities and students forsook their buildings to find temporary shelter at Concord. Among the most eminent of the Revolutionary leaders were the graduates from Harvard,—such as the two Adamses, Hancock, Warren, and Otis. President Washington visited the college in 1790, while the reception to Gen. Lafayette in 1824 was a marked epoch. The two hundredth celebration of the college occurred

in 1836, with imposing ceremonies, wherein Edward Everett delivered one of his most pleasing orations; and Dr. Holmes, of the famous class of 1829, whose name awakens thrills of affectionate respect in all our hearts, gave a poem on that occasion, as he did also in more elaborate form at the recent two hundred and fiftieth celebration in 1886. At the latter celebration the following three stanzas from his poem recited fifty years before were repeated, as the ones remembered by the venerable poet:

"When the Puritans came over,
Our hills and swamps to clear,
The woods were full of catamounts
And Indians red as deer,

With tomahawks and scalping-knives

That make folks' heads look queer.
Oh, the ship from England used to bring
A hundred wigs a year!

"And who was on the catalogue
When college was begun?

Two nephews of the President
And the professor's son.

(They turned a little Indian boy,
As brown as any bun).

Lord, how the seniors knocked about
The Freshman class of one!

"God bless the ancient Puritans!
Their lot was hard enough;
But honest hearts make iron arms,
And tender maids are tough.

So love and faith have formed and fed
Our true-born Yankee stuff,

And keep the kernel in the shell
The British found so rough."

Fain would I dwell on the part Harvard took in the war for the Union; but time forbids me to do more than merely mention the fact that, of her 1,232 volunteers, 361 fell as martyrs, and their names are enrolled in Memorial Hall.

The two hundred and fiftieth celebration of the college, in 1886, is of recent memory; and its exercises, in which some of you took part, call for little mention, especially as they have been published in a handsome volume. But, among the profoundly interesting and brilliant utterances on that occasion, I was impressed with the sermon of Bishop Brooks, wherein he said: "The college lay like a ball of light in the intention of its founders. Like a rock in a great sea, resting on its own foundations, beaten by the waves, of which it takes no manner of account, so stands the Puritanism of the seventeenth century in the Harvard College

which it built in the midst of the multifarious and restless history of man." And Dr. Brooks says that no break is to be found in its progressive history which conforms to the advancement of humanity. Yet that history presents four epochs about one-half century apart. In 1700 there was a movement of marked significance connected with the university regarding the true recipients of the Christian sacraments, wherein the Mathers, both father and son, took active part. The result was a wider and deeper appreciation of the true significance of the Christian symbols.

was

Again, in 1736 and 1740 there was an epoch in connection with the rigid teachings of Jonathan Edwards, arising through the extraordinary enthusiasm created by the coming of Whitefield to Boston. Again, in 1804, the choice of Henry Ware to the Hollis professorship of theology a crisis, wherein dogma came in conflict with truth; and, whatever views may be entertained in regard to modes of church polity and belief seriously entertained by the respective controversialists, sure it is that the change was in the direction of that higher and broader Christianity which we recognize as love to God and love to man. Lastly, in recent times, those of us who are in middle life have witnessed a revolution. We can recognize the marked effects of the emphasis placed upon sociology and psychology, the extension of the elective studies, the enlargement of all methods of culture, confined no longer to the humanities. We have seen great advances, so as to include not only the trivium of the medieval schoolmen, embracing grammar and rhetoric and logic, and the quadrivium, embracing algebra, geometry, music, and astronomy, but all philosophy and science and much of art.

Dr. Brooks tersely put it: "Experience became larger than Whitefield, dogma than Calvin, life than theology"; and under this new method we rejoice to think that neither scholarship nor aspiration for the highest religious thought has declined.

At Commencement time two years ago, among the brilliant orations and speeches it was my privilege to hear, I was especially impressed with the speech of President Eliot, wherein he gave assurance, with a simplicity which bespoke his sincerity, that Harvard University cherishes all the good