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About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 10, 1922)
& THE SUNDAY OREGOKIAX, PORTLAND, DECEMBER 10, 1923 jlim flan 9rc oomatt 1 S ,... Tt . ,'1890! AojiJuiL.i3nE.u ox ii n i . in kiva Publlshed by The Oregoman Pub. Co., 1& Sixth Stieet, PorLand, Oregon. C A. jiokdeny K. B. PIPER, .Manager. Editor. SOCJ-ated Press Th AstH-iated Press exclusively entitled to the use for pubW catkm of all neurs dispatches credited to It or not otherwise creJited in this paper ftnd "jsk the local nt-ws published herein. AH rights of publication of trpcial dis patches herein are also reserved. Subscription Kat ee-tn variably in Advance. (By Mail, in Oregon, Washington, Idaho Dally, Sunday Included, one year ... .$8.0f. Dai y, Sunday included, six months . .4.-... Dally, Sunday included, three months z..o 1 Daily. Sunday included, one month .. .75 ! Dally, without Sunday, one year . 6.00 i Dat.y, without Sunday, six months .. 3.2o) Daily, without Sunday, one month .. .60 Sunday, one year 230' Ail other points m the uniteo states Dally. 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ON BURNING WOMEN'S COLLEGES. Not without reason, the declara tion of a millionaire elevator manu facturer that it would be better for the world if all women's colleges were burned has created a hubbub in those circles in which the opin ions of "successful men" obtain a certain merit from the fact that they are uttered by one who has "arrived," in a worldly sense. The specifications of this man's indict ment are that . the colleges teach girls to "smoke cigarettes, paint their faces, use slang, and make themselves otherwise objection able." Speaking more generally, he observed that higher education for women is "all tomfoolery." Be ing pressed for answer to the ques tion whether, on reflection, he would insist, if he had his way, that all women's colleges be consigned to the pyre, he replied: "Oh, well, when I wrote that letter I did not know that it was to be made pub lic. Perhaps I would not have written that way if I had. But I do say that every hour spent in women's colleges is a waste of time." Quite naturally, educational au thorities decline to take the pro nouncement seriously. The ancient arguments against freedom and op portunity for women in education began to crumble almost exactly a century ago. We have a sense of reading very ancient history when we come upon those provisions of early school law, enacted within the lifetime of the republic, for the in struction of girls in such periods as could be spared best from the major task of teaching boys. "The committee have power," says a town ordinance of present senti mental interest, "to agree with the school master to instruct the girls two hours "a day after the boys are dismissed." With what lofty aims must the authorities have decreed, as did a town meeting in 1790, that "females" might be instructed part of the time, "as they are a tender and interesting branch of the com munity, but have been much neg lected in the public schools!" As to women, the first quarter of the nineteenth century may be re garded as the academy stage; in the second quarter higher education be gan to develop not, we may be sure, without misgivings on the part of the hardshelled conserva tives of the time. There is a par ticular reason why Mary Lyon and Kmma Willard were two of the first three women to be elected to the National hall of fame. It is that their names are associated with the beginning of the move ment for the higher education of Women throughout the world. Perhaps the comparative novelty of the present order accounts for the circumstance that opposition to it is not yet dead. Less than a cen tury is not a long period in the history of an important phenome non, yet in respect to women's ad mission to the facilities of learning it covers virtually all that is worth recording. Oberlin. from the first a co-educational institution, was not opened until 1S32 and did not confer degrees on women students until 1837. The first separate col lege for women was not incorpor ated until 1861 nor opened until 18 65. Yet the intervening period, which had been interrupted by the civil war, was marked by signifi cant activity, tho fruits of which are now apparent. The outstand ing characteristic of the movement was the rapidity with which it grew and the persistence with which it continued facts not to be frivol ously dismissed as matters of little moment or explained away by cava lier allusions to customs which in the main do not exist and which are not in any degree representative of the movement as a whole. It would of course be interesting to trace the lives of all the women who have been graduated from in stitutions of higher learning since tho barriers against the sex were broken down. The credit due them for the spread of education as a whole is manifest in a maxim of education now universally accepted. The sons of college women nearly invariably become college men. Nor has the tendency been mainly to ward education of women in col leges exclusively for the sex. The federal commissioner of education reminds us that whereas in the aca- demic year 1915-16 there were eighty-nine colleges for women, I with 20.6SS undergraduates, there were 69,543 undergraduate women students in colleges for both sexes, a total of 90,181, by comparison with a total of 152.860 undergradu ate men. Expansion of the field of women's activity is an accomplished fact. New professions beckon. We ob serve that degrees in agriculture were conferred on women to the number of 135 in U single recent year, and forty-six in commerce, half a dozen in architecture. 691 in education and more than 9000 in the arts and sciences. It Is appar ent that women still have a hand in the maintenance of the standards of elementary education throughout the country. The trend toward the exacting utilitarian professions be comes more marked. Results, in derd. so far as they are capable of being summarized from mere sta- Ustical reports, are eloquently icated by the census, which for gives the number of women in i nrnrceci'nnql aaw,rir.a 911 COO JTliii! ; . , , . , . thad increased in 1900 to 430,576, and in 1910 to 733,885. The fear i QoDmi, a -nrnA i.nJ fit women physically for domestic concerns will seem to the observer ; of events to belong in the same category as the now discarded the ory that society would be destroyed by the admission of the sex to for mal education of any kind. MAKING THRIFT COMPULSORY. There is no pretense of philan- . 1 thropy in the scheme of compulsory thrift which has just been put into . . . - . .. effect by a number of associated public utility companies in Kansas. The companies .contend that it helps them to get a better class of employes, that it insures better work from those who are employed and that it lessens the cost of "turnover," always a vexatious mat ter where the payroll is large. So the rule has been adopted that the individual worker must be able to show that he is saving 10 per cent of his salary qr give up his job. He may put the money in a savings bank, or buy a home on the install ment plan, or invest in securities. The point insisted on is that he must live on 10 per cent less than he is paid. The plan is a reminder of that adopted by Henry Ford, described by Dr. Marquis and otherwise well known to students of welfare work. It is based on good economics and whether or not the principle of compulsion runs counter to our ideas of the rights of a free and in dependent citizen, if serves to call attention to the relation between self-restraint in such minor affairs as the regulation of one's budgetary affairs and all-around efficiency in other particulars. The man who practices' thrift as a means of hold ing his job may discover that he likes it and become a voluntary saver where formerly he was a spendthrift. An official of one of the companies says: We find that in practice the theory works. Otherwise we should have aban doned it. We find that the man who al ways lives from hand to mouth is not the best employe, Forethought in one's pri vate affairs may mean for. ,ight in deal ing with the company's ousiness. One man admitted to me that he had spent $16.23 in a month for soft drinks; an other said that he had paid $13 for automobile hire to go to a baseball game in a neighboring town. If it be conceded that the man's money was his to do with as he pleased after he had earned it, the arguments in favor of thrift as a character-builder remain valid. It is all the better for thrift to be vol untary but it is always desirable. Though the picturesque silk-shirt era is passing, there is still place in the readjustment for the thrift movement, as the Kansas experi ment seems to have proved. OUB BROTHER THE INDIAN. Too late to be of practical value to the generations that have suf fered, both red and white, as the result of our early misunder standing of the Indian Inhabitants, renewed interest in the culture of the American aborigines which is symbolized by the opening of the Museum of the American Indian nevertheless has definite value. The measures adopted in the process of taking over the country by the whites, the expedients, the cruelties that prevailed are seen in the light of history to have been mainly as unnecessary as they were' unjust. It will be profitable to consider dis passionately the kind of people we were then dealing with and to ap praise the measure of our own error, just as open confession Is good for the soul because it en ables us to realize and to profit by our mistakes. This among other things a mu seum devoted to Indian history and culture will aid us in doing. The western plainsman's motto, "The only good Indian is a dead Indian." was largely the product of condi tions for which neither element was immediately to blame. Unfor tunately for both, the first comers of the whites took no pains to establish the principle of equity in their dealings with their red brothers, who were ethnologically savages, yet, as we now know, pos sessed some virtues which entitled them to respect. Our later impres sions of the Indians have been ob tained from history and fiction that was far from exact. It is probably true, as O. B. Sper lin, a recent student of the Indians of the northwest, has concluded, that "almost without exception the red men who first came in contact with the whites were much better than historians have generally painted them." We think thePe were exceptions to the rule that they were usually hospitable until they had reason to be otherwise, but they may have varied in this respect no more than an equally numerous and varied group of Cau casians. In any event the Indians of our coast were in the main a people with honor, they were indus trious and their ideas of justice differed in kind rather than in es sence from our own. Tho commonest error made by the first traders and explorers in the west was that which set down all Indians as thieves. This was due to a plain misunderstanding of the Indian conception of property rights. To the simple-minded native all natural objects were the right ful possessions in common of the peoples who dwelt on the soil. When therefore a shipmaster pro ceeded to appropriate without the permission of the Indians even as inconsiderable a thing as stone for ballast for his vessel, the Indians believed that they were only acting on white man's precedent if they appropriated articles of a different kind. This happened, for example. when Captain Gray, prior to his discovery of the Columbia river, landed a shore party in the vicinity of what is now Tillamook and with out previous parley proceeded to cut and carry off grass for animals on board his ship. The Indian who with equal want of ceremony ap propriated a sailor's cutlass, pre cipitating a fight In which one of the ship's company was killed, must have been greatly puzzled by the distinction between various forms of property then made by the whites. This difference was fundamental and if it had been understood by both sides, or respected by the whites alone, much subsequent bloodshed would have been saved. The annals of frontier history are replete with instances which simi larly indicute that the newcomers had no apprehension of a possible cultural foundation of tho people in-(with whom they were, dealing and this attitude prevailed up to and throughout the period of the Indian u - .j Kir V, a olnnr n n 1.. n - . t. ' esses of which the natives were at length reduced to subjection. It troc n'jrtinnl.irir of the fifties, when the treaties by j which the Indians ceded their lands - were enforced immediately as to occupancy by the "whites, while payment for them was long delayed by red tape at Washington, the t ers from fighting. In these days nature of which on their part the 1 we should judge men by their ac Indians could not comprehend. Ition in the time of supreme test, not Scientific interest in the Indian is more than a matter of collecting relics and housing them: it ex tends, too, t,o study of the cultures which those relics connote, and finally to contemplation of past tragic mistakes and misunderstand ings which could have been avoided if the spirit of inquiry had then prevailed. All ethnological data are valuable, but particularly thos which are likely to direct the cur rent of our thought into channels by which our future conduct may be made to conform to the truths which they reveal. A SUNDAY DINNER OF 52. There were gormands in those days. Little they recked of paying the landlord the princely sum of $9 a week for board and room, with the privilege of wielding toothpicks on the piazza. At'hen they sat them down at table it was not to pick and choose and play the dilettante, but manfully to brave the varied com forts of a gargantuan card, and to explore and exploit the menu from its northern zone to farthest south. They did not call it a menu then. It was the bill of fare. Dr. Osier was cooing in his cradle. Pap was - the diet of Master Horace Fletcher. Hundreds of health crusaders were yet unborn, and the man of 40 years was yet in his gastronomic heyday. The times were generous arid goodly. These and kindred reflections must arise from the thoughtful contemplation of a bill of fare is sued for Sunday dinner by the long vanished Matteson house of Chicago in the fall of 1852, and recently re printed by the Chicago Tribune. In quaint old type and flamboyant border this relic of the hardy past! brings back a period when the high cost of living was never dignified as an issue, and comestibles were casual. The host of that olden inn, in presenting his patrons with such a Sunday dinner served at 1 o'clock, mark you was a modest fellow, yet mindful of his munifi cence. He said that, if popular ap proval greeted his humble effort, the card would be repeated on Thanksgiving day, and so it came to pass. There were five sorts of fish, in cluding the patrician trout; nine va rieties of boiled meats and fowl, with turkey as one of these; seven roasts; seven items of poultry and rame, featuring quail, prairie chicken, wild goose and wild duck; fourteen entrees; eleven cold meats; sixteen vegetables; eight relishes; seven masterpieces of pie and pud ding; and twenty-seven choices for dessert. What might middlings and cabbage have been? Who knows today of the antelope melon, that sounds so very good to eat? Where, may we ask, do they yet serve boiled salt pork as a dish for epicures? A lost art. comrades. And with chastened philosophy do we remark that mine host of the Matteson House compounded such delights as Madeira, brandy, port wine and rum jellies. The days that come no more. How brave and careless and non chalant were those grandsires of ours! Admiration leaps backward over a long lifetime to yield them .tribute well deserved. They flouted digestive disaster as the great Blon din mocked the mighty waterfall. The record is silent as to pains and penalties that may have subse quently been imposed, but at least they could wipe the gravy from their beards and bold mustaches and say, looking the world arro gantly in the eye. "Fate cannot harm me I have dined today." Who was this chap Lucullus, with his ortolans and truffles?. The veriest tyro of the table, gleaning an ill-deserved fame from the com parative poverty of his contem poraries. The penitent Barmecide was a piker. WHICH KIND OF LEADERS? I The spectacle of Generals Persh ing and Dawes speaking in Chicago ! against radical revolutionists, free riot, sedition in wartime and against tearing up the constitution presents some sharp contrasts. We have the contrast between two men - who fought for America, and Thompson, the pro-German mayor of the sixth German city in the world; Small, the governor who did nothing to bring the Herrin murderers to jus tice and who pardoned a batch of reds at Thanksgiving, and Debs, who uses the clemency of the gov ernment to mouth sedition. We also have the contrast between the audience which rose to cheer the two patriotic speakers and the great alien population of Chieagor which is not only un-Americanized but much of which is anti-American. Everybody knows where Persh ing stands. He fought barbarism in the west, in the Philippines and in France, and he would have fought it to a finish in Mexico if Wilson would have let him. He de clared for no armistice to Germany without unconditional surrender. He calls a spade a spade, a man who would tear down the govern ment a traitor, and he includes in one sweeping condemnation all those forces of destruction and dis ruption which would "choke to death our sacred heritage of pa triotism and freedom." He declares for adequate forces to defend the country and for training of men that they may serve in its defense. There is no question where Dawes stands. He was the business head of the army in France for purchase of supplies. He has been the presi dent's right hand in enforcing econ omy on tire spending bureaucrats at Washington. He voices open con demnation of the governor who permitted terrorism to run rampant at Herrin and he brands as dema gogues and cowards the men in congress who undermine the con stitution to win a few votes. A fair choice of leaders Is offered to the American people. Will they follow men of that type, who have fought and worked for the republic and who breathe the spirit of 1776 and 1861, or will they follow men like Thompson, Small, Debs and those who compose the radical bloc in congress, almost every one of whom opposed and obstructed .the war? Are the men whose success would have made Germany su preme over America as well as Eu rope safe leaders in restoring order in its affairs after the war? In every word of Pershing, Dawes and Uhi. v. . pose to preserve and strengthen the republic for which they fought. No such purpose can be assumed in men who refused to fight and who exerted themselves to prevent oth by their professions after they have failed under that test. LEARNING TO DISPENSE WITH HELP Great progress has been made by farmers in taking control of . the marketing of their own products by means of co-operation, and in tak ing into their hands the stock of federal farm loan banks. Secretary of the Treasury Mellon in his an nual, report says that "many new associations have been organized and have made considerable prog ress in developing facilities for uni form grading and classification" and "have also erected machinery which will greatly facilitate grad ual, orderly marketing." They have received much assistance from the war finance corporation, but have used only a portion of the $113, 000,000 allotted to them. They have "already demonstrated their ability to conduct their business on a sound basis" and "banks all over the country have made and are making large sums available to them. Indicating both revived prosper ity of farmers and progress in dis- ! pensing with the use of government capital is the statement that the sale of federal farm loan bonds has exceeded the needs of the banks for lending purposes, and that, out of the total capital stock of these banks, $30,866,995 is held by farm loan associations and only $4,264,-. 880 by the government. As the total of loans increases, the rest of the stock will be. transferred from the government to the bor rowers, and these banks will be come strictly co-operative institu tions under government supervi sion. American farmers show com- menaame aptitude m taking the financing and marketing of their business under their control. There was never reason to believe that they would be less successful than those of Europe. All that they needed was convincing proof of the necessity. As deflation gave them this, it may prove a Blessing in the long run. THE REAL HENRY FORD. What is the real Henry Ford? That is a natural question to ask in regard to tne man who is reputed to be the second richest, if not the richest, in the United States, per haps in the world a man who has under his personal control one of the greatest of American industries employing more than 100,000 per sons a man whose acts and words at times stir the imagination and arouse public curiosity as to what manner of man he really is. In order to give the answer to this question, The Oregonian' has been publishing a series of articles by a man who is well equipped for the task. Dr. Marquis is the pastor of Mr. Ford's church, was for several years manager of his welfare de partment, resigned of his own will, was invited to return and declined, is a keen and sympathetic student of human character, is prompted by no sense of wrong to render biased judgment, is himself a man of well developed intellect and well round ed character, governed by high pur pose. Such a man is well fitted to make a just analysis of so baffling a personality as that of Henry Ford. He has revealed to us two Henry Fords. One is a man of seemingly simple character in which the spirit of brotherly fellowship with all men dominates. This man de sires to draw out the loyalty of his employes by paying them so liber ally that all shall be able to live a decent family life, educate their children well, and be free from care about sickness, debt or want. This readiness to help is held in check by practice of the maxim that men must help themselves and by aver sion for giving anything for noth ing. It is justified 'from the view point of the business man by the belief that men so treated yield a full return in higher efficiency and fidelity and regard for the interest of their employer. But Ford's love of birds and the animals of the woods bespeaks a kindly nature, for in his care of them no motive of selfishness can enter. He gives liberally to churches, hospitals and other good works, but grudges money to be spent in costly, ornate, artistic buildings; he prefers the useful to the ornamental. But there is another Henry Ford. He is elusive, avoiding close con tact with any man, unwilling that any man shall know him too well. He turns from the solicitude for the welfare m of his workmen that has been so widely proclaimed and that has won him a reputation for phl lanthrophy to the cold, hard meth ods of the ruthless business man who considers regard for the health, comfort and happiness of his workmen "all bunk," who scoffs at the thought of loyalty on the part of workmen to employers and who believes that the only success ful methods are to "treat 'em rough." He becomes physically transformed in a day, and this is the sign of moral transformation. He discharges scores of men with out explanation and without known reason, including men of high posi tion, great talent and fidelity. He shirks personal responsibility for these sudden explosions, imposing it on his executives. He secludes himself behind a secretary, he makes appointments that he does not keep, and when he can no longer escape responsibility for un just discharge, he makes a prom ise of amends but breaks it. v There are two Henry Fords the JekyH Ford and the Hyde Ford. But there is no such combinations of a good and an evil character in the same man as forms the basis of Conan Doyle's story. The solution of this human mystery is found in these words of Dr. Marquis: The true explanation of him seems to be this-r-his mind has never been or ganized . . . and the moral qual ities and impulses . . . have never been blended into a stable, unified char acter. ... A genius in the use of methods for the assembly of the parts of a machine, he has failed to appreciate the supreme importance of the proper assembly, adjustment and balance of the pans of the mental and moral machine within him. He has in him the makings of a great man. the parts lying about in more or lea disorder. This failure to assemble the parts (of his mind and character may be ascribed to Mr. Ford's limited edu cation, to the concentration of his energies on mechanical invention and production, and to the neglect to make good his mental deficien cies which resulted from his ab sorption in business. He has high, noble impulses, but lacks the men tal equipment for their proper di rection. Lincoln had the same early handicaps, but he made good, by voracious reading and study, the deficiencies from which Ford seems still to suffer. The formative years in which Lincoln acquired knowl edge of history, philosophy and law were devoted by Ford to the car which fascinated his mechanical genius. Thereafter he so quickly became head of a great industry that he had no time to fill the voids in his intellectual equipment. His lack of the knowledge and training that Lincoln had acquired during those early years may explain his peace ship fiasco, but his failure to realize his deficiencies and to make them good evidences a defect of character. If he had had Lincoln's preparation for life, he could not have sent the peace ship to Europe. Possession of wealth and employ ment of thousands of men endow a man with great power, and these came to Mr. Ford suddenly and rapidly. His good impulses made him long to use this power for noble ends, but his n a t lv e business shrewdness restrained him at the outset. Together with conscious ness of power must have come con sciousness that he was not well qualified to use it. He was depend ent on others for information that he should have possessed himself, and for that sound judgment which is matured by a well trained mind. Hence may have arisen suspicion that he had been led' into senti mental folly by highbrow Idealists or had been imposed on by para sites a suspicion that would be fanned by the "roughnecks" among his executives. That may be tl.a i key to his attacks of gloom and to the explosions that follow. Possession of the unassembled parts of greatness are not sufficient to make a great man. A man of such unco-ordinated mind and character is capable only of flashes of greatness, and these are offset by displays of destructive genius. Greatness requires wide knowledge. well formed character and a defi nite purpose executed persistently by a strong will in addition to es pecial genius of a particular' kind. Mr. Ford is a mechanical and busi ness genius, but lacks those quali ties that go to make a construc tively great man like Charlemagne and his contemporary Alfred the Great, or Washington, Lincoln, or Cecil Rhodes, or in our own time, Roosevelt. As senator or president, he would use his power as capri ciously and, by fits and starts, as ruthlessly, as he uses his power as a manufacturer. It would bemused far more injuriously, for he does know how to run an automobile factory, but he knows nothing about running a government. That requires a far different type of abil ity from that of a business man, for it requires capacity to bring into harmonious action men and women of many types, among which busi ness men are only one. If he at tempted to be a statesman, his transitions between Jekyll and Hyde would be apt to prove more violent and disastrous in their ef fects on the nation than they are on his business, for he does understand that, and he certainly does not un derstand the complex science of government. OBSTACLES TO GOOD ENGLISH. Those who have recently won dered at the comparative failure of the schools to inculcate the habit of writing clear, succinct and express ive English have stumbled on no new problem. It is as old as the profession of teaching; it has vexed the pedagogues of many a bygone generation and no doubt it will con tinue to irritate schoolmasters for centuries to come. The difficulty lies in putting a finger on a remedy. There already has been much speculation as to the cause. There is no lack of the will to do. There are faultfinders innumerable, while constructfve criticism is wanting. Conditions which confront teachers of English composition are actual, not theoretical; nor has a-century of experience shed much light on the issue that was alive a century ago. Professor F. N. Scott of the Uni versity of Michigan points out in the English Journal that one of the nearly universal drawbacks of the present system of teaching compo sition in schools and colleges is the correction of themes. If it be con ceded that the theory of emphasiz ing faults is wrong, there is still no alternative, as Professor Scott points out. Are we to permit er- rorsJo go uncorrected? To what would the plactlce Of giving the student unbridled rein lead ? Whatever crimes are committed" in the name of the practice at theme correcting, as Professor Scott points out, "it keeps its place In virtue of two incontestable facts: First, it has been, the prevailing method for 200 years and more, and, second, no other method has been as yet invented that will in practice take its place." Still the fault is obvious, as we are justified in concluding from results. We fail to reach the disease of which errors are merely the symptoms. As a preventive the theme correc tion seems to have failed, though there is reason' to .fear that if it were abandoned results might be even worse. ' . Teachers before Professor Scott have detected an odd similarity in the syntactical "howlers" of school boys. There are the same verbal confusions, the same fanlts of con struction, the same violations of the canons of good taste, as the writer notes. "So uniform," he says, "is the run that if a thousand papers by a hundred students in each of ten leading universities were put before an impartial judge, I venture to say that the judge, solely by merit, could not assign any but the smallest fraction of them to the Institutions at which they were written." The problem is not ge ographical, nor is it limited to a class. On only one point does there appear to be agreement and that Is that conditions are growing worse. It seems to be conceded that young students of the present show less facility in composition than their more or less remote predecessors did. Yet this conclusion may be Impaired by the circumstance that a vastly larger proportion of our young men and young women go to school than did so even half a cen tury ago. The suggestion that English com position is influenced by spoken languages is thought-provoking, but putting an added burden of blame on the melting pot does not ms- cover the cure. More than 12.000,- j 000 of our fellow Americans, Pro- i fessor Scott reminds us, "were born in counties where English is not their native language and have for their speech an alien tongue." The sons and daughters of these number at least J3.000.000 more. "Thus there are at least 25.000,000 per sons whose speech is either un qualifiedly foreign or at least influ enced by the speech-of home and country." "Translation English" is. we think, an excellent term to de scribe the product. It accounts for vn,,inn ,v ,,. J thought, and the difficulties of!" thinking in a foreign tongue are well known. Few foreign-born writers of English have mastered the vernacular as, for example, has Joseph Conrad, or as did Professor Munsterberg and Carl Schurz. It is more plausible that the breaking down of what may be termed the "family tradition" has made inroads on the forms of written language. "The family in years gone by, or the household, was a sort of bulwark against the forces which tend to degrade and brutalize the vernacular." Here we detect the familiar note of com plaint at the. decreasing sense of parents in matters educational. For The daily reading of the scriptures, the earnest - admonition of parents, couched frequently in conventional but nevertheless elevated language, the com parative isolation of thousands of homes, the absence of the lighter forms of lit erature, all these and other influences tended to preserve in the family, in spite of provincialisms and grammatical lapses, a certain tone and choiceness and gravity of speech that are the essential families, whether of north or south, that haracteristics or national id:om. in have preserved their integrity and, for one reason and another, limited tneir intercourse with tho community, we may still hear this firm, deliberate speech the speech of a Kentucky mountaineer or the speech of a Lincoln. So the issue of blame reverts to a point very distant from that at which we started which had to do with the inverted psychology of theme correction and arrives at the still more perplexing distribu tion of responsibility between school and liome the latter includ ing, as we f'jel bound to, recall, those homes in which foreign idioms and alien constructions abound. Deeper than all is the perpetual combat .behind the language- of the child, a mode of behavior as nat ural as gesture and play, in which "the order of words is determined by the precedence of the feelings," nd the increasing complexities of modern composition. It is unde niable that demands on vocabulary grow with civilization. Every new edition of a dictionary attests it. But so, too, there is greater em phasis on form. Left to his own devices the child, entering school with the invaluable gifts of Im pulse to communicate and a vo cabularysuch as it is probably would contrive to make himself understood. But Professor Scott comes no nearer to a solution when he says that the teacher "now pro ceeds to ignore, or at least under value, the gestures, poses, cries and modulations, and unload on him the colossal structure of our speech." It is not quite clear how gestures, poses, cries and modula tions can be transmuted Into writ ten composition, however desirable it were to do so. It is precisely because of these limitations upon written speech that its forms are necessary, and it is because of all the difficulties suggested that the problem is as interesting as it is. The Bay cities have Jjig ideas. A short while ago they were full of a plan to build a viaduct across San Francisco bay; now they are talk ing of a bridge across the' Golden Gate. Perhaps they find support in the declaration of an eminent en gineer that from a technical stand point there was nothing to prevent the building of a bridge across the Atlantic. But he also said that it was possible to reach a point where an enterprise would be so colossal that it would not pay. General Grant used to find com fort in the reflection that the other fellow was guessing just as hard aslt.iat for the poor heathen. he was. Congress is probably won dering just as much what the peo ple really want as we are specu lating on what congress is likely to do. The season of colds having come again, it is appropriate to suggest that more fresh air and a higher degree of humidity in the living room is one of the btst preventives, as well as the cheapest ones, that there is. Score one for the weather man, who doesn't always get the credit for acumen that he deserves. He predicted the coming of rain with in a few minutes of the time that it actually came. Christmas strawberries are prom ised at around $5 the quart. We can think of no more pleasing way to save $5 than by going without the kind of strawberries that Christmas usually brings out. If only the cost of living would drop with the price of radium. which after declining from $180,000 to $120,000 a gram has tumbled to a mere $70,000, all in a tew days! If any excuse for a return game of football were needed, it is fully supplied by the proposal to play one for the benefit of the Commu nity Chest. Queen Mary has set the example of doing the Christmas shopping early, with the result that she is swamped by crowds that govern their conduct by the queen's. Scientists predict that they will soon be able to predict earthquakes with certainty. Somebody is al ways taking the zest out of life. "Revival of the desire to spend" is noted in a review of business con ditions. Only the wherewithal Is needed to make the act complete. The "bigger and better" Astoria movement as a matter of course is already under way. -Are you putting a little seal on the back of every letter and pack age? II not, begin today. The Listening Post. By DeWItt Harry. jTHE family pet, a handsome old I i Tom cat. had died. He passea i away from old age and ease. His j final hours were peaceful. But, with his cold remains In the house, a problem arose. How to carry out the last sad rites? - After a lecethv discussion in vhich disposal In the garbage can. burial in the back yard and leaving on the neighborhood pest's front porch were considered, it was de cided that a watery grave would be the best. So when the man of the house left for his office the next morning he carried a neat paper par cel that contained old Tom's re- mains. The plan was for the parcel "e thrown frOm the street car into the center of the river, , as the car crossed the bridge. But, as It happened, the custodian of the corpse became engaged in one of those hot, back-platform debates and forgot the cat until his arrival at his office. So the poor old cat reposed on the ledge outside the window all that day. Evening came and the poor old fat begin another journey towards his former happy home. It happened that this night the- cars were jammed as never before and the owner of the white parcel was wedged in so tightly that there was i,o chance to cast the cat Into the cold river water. But, as he neared bis destination, he got an Inspira tion. Why not forget the cat? So, as he got off the car, the con ductor called to him and handed down a white paper parcel, and he arrived back Home, after earning around the parcel all day long, with the cat yet undisposed of. After another council it was de cided to write "finis" to the cat ca reer by burial. A bag of lime was purchased at the corner drug store and, after the grave was prepared. the white paper parcel was brought from the house and untied, i Inside were two big, juicy sirloin sieaks. Treachery lurks In the wild. Self preservation forces birds and beasts to subterfuge and betrayal. Last wtek a doe Jumped from a cliff to her death on the lower Columbia river highway. Friar- Tuck refuses t.- admit that she committed suicide. ! Friar Tuck knows as much about the woods' lore as any of Rooin Hood's brave rascals. He tells of one place, near the Oregon coast, where a perpendicular bluuff, several hun dred feet in height, is masked by dense forest. Approaching through the trees there is no inkling of danger until beast or man stands on the brink. The first time Friar Tuck traveled this way he recoiled from the edge just in time to save himself. As he threw himself back he heard the whir of wings and a big buzzard swept by within a few feet, scaly head almost within reach, loathsome talons outstretched. It gave Friar Tuck such a start that lie muttered several paeternosters or something ot the kind he said with fervor un der his breath. When his nerves were quieter he once again ap proached the edge and looked over. There, hundreds of 'feet below, were piles of bones. As he stood, fet braced, firm hold on a tree, asain came the whir of wings and this time half a dozen of the vul tures swept past. They came on a level flight until even with the edge and with a shriek and clatter dipped and dived below. Friar Tuck says they were trying to lure unsuspecting animals to de struction. They were vandals who preyed on the corpses of those they sent to ruin. So he Insists that the doe on the highway did not kill her self, that some dogs drove her over the edge or that she became con fused. Not many of us squander more than a passing thought on the ap proach of the .new year. So the civilized Christian it seldom means more than another 365 days' strug gle. Some few make resolutions, and small proportion keep them. In the main however we don't think of scarfing anew, of wiping the .slate clean and doing better. We leave Down in Chinatown, with "their New Year more than two months away, they are already getting ready for the season. With the Chi nese each year is something done and gone and at its end they square their accounts and start anew. A relic of their heathen ways if you like, but a very enobling manner f thinking "even for a poor for eigner. So the Chinese are casting up their accounts and preparing for the new ytar as reckoned by their calendar that is centuries older than the one the Christians use. On Chinese New Year's day they will pay every bill they owe and settle all their obliga tions so that each and every one of tnem can face the world afresh, ready to do his best during the next i.2 months. . ' What is news? Ah, there you are. Almost anyone but a news writer knows, it might" be possible that newspapers overlook a great deal of real interest to the community. This forcibly was brought to our mind a few days ago when we looked at the waste paper on the floor and ietrieved the following little bit: "Mrs. Abigal O Deah la at the St. Johns general hospital having a badly bruised leg taken care ot. Report! are that she is resting easily, it having occurred in a fall." So why not a page or mote in the daily papers every issue so that we could be regaled with items of this nature. Such as: Jessie Blunders dislocated the second Joint of the third finger of her left hand while typing yesterday. While painful the lniury will not Iteep her from work. A sad accident caused consternation at the Waverly mission sewing bee last Tuesday, iirs. Charles Dwlgbt Stephens forgot her thimble and. in an Interested conversation, tried to shove her needle through six thicknesses of unfinished linen with her bare finger. The needle penetrated at least one-tenth of an inch and the result was that a fine pair of pajamas for the African Gongo settle ment, was plentifully sprinkled with blood. Mrs. Stephens, at last reports, was wearing the finger of an old kid glove on her own sore finger. ' One of the regular sights of the towri is to be seen at Broadway and Morrison. It is a bored man stand ing on the curb, with his entranced wife flitting from window to win dow of a big furrier's establishment Most married men have marked this corner as a danger spot on their city maps. , There's a Reason. By Grace K. Hall. Have yon tried to come op from the vaney oeiow To the hills where the sunshine Is ! brighter? I Have you plumbed every depth In your being to know ! Why the burdens you bear are not j lighter? You will never be more than you're longing to be. For all effort must have a begin ning. And the goal that you set is the goal you will see Though beyond there are more, for your winning. There's a reason for everything under the sun, ' And it's certain no man can as sist you. If you leave anything which your strength could have done Maybe that is Why fortune has missed you. THE MILKING SONG. The farmer boy at clote of day Is peacefully whistling & ditty gay, The sun withdraws his pallid ray While the farm boy is gently milking Whistling and milking and strip ping away By the dim red light of the lan . tern. The cows and sheep and noble bay Are comfortably munching odorous hay, Nor seem to care if winter stay While the farm boy is dreamily ' milking Milking end stripping and humming By the dim red light of the lantern. He sits and thinks and strips away, While his plans the lays as a wise man may: "Me for my bed, , for at break of day I'll be off to the city tomorrow," Planning and whistling and hum ming away, He milks by the light of the lantern. The bins of grain and stacks of hay Give all needed proof he can make his way. And indicate he is here to stay. For content in his heart is tip springing Gaily he's dreaming and whistling away While he milks by light of the lantern. WILLIAM CHELCIE STRIKER. TWO CITIKS. (Lone Fir Cemetery.) There's a silent city yonder. Just beyond the busy street. Friends come oft with roses laden, Oft they come, but none can greet. Here they sleep, the high and lowly, Rich and poor here equal mate. Hushed are all their stone-built dwellings, Vine o'ergrow each bolted gate Ships sail past this silent city, But their masters quiet lie. Heeding not the call, or signal. Floating 'neath the glowing sky. Here the maiden long has slum bered, Garbed in simple -snow - white dress, Tresses flowing free, unheeded None came hither to caress. There are flowers blooming ever. Near their marble mansions white, And the bells of nearby city Peal out softly through the night. Yet they waken not, these sleepers. They who're gathered In his fold While the river flows between them. These two cities growing old. ' JUNE MacMILLAN ORDWAY. T1NKKR1N". When father tinkers 'round at home A-fixing chairs and things, . He calls to all the family - -To bring him nails and strings And, "wheres the scissors Mandy Go get the hammer, John; Say, where'd yo-j put those washers. Kate? -Come hold this rivet on." He keeps us all a-jumpln' round' . While he nreaks into a sweat. And it sounds like things wa$ doiiT When fatner works, you bet! But somehow when he's finished And gone away downtown And mother goes to piokin" up The tools he s scattered round She finds he's split the chair seat Because the nails were big. She goes to turn the faucet And finds it out of rig; And so she gets a carpenter And calls the plumber in But father thinks he did it all With a little tinkerin.' . JANETTB MARTIN. THE simple: life FOR IK. A rich man rides in his limousine From Portland to the sea A rich man rides on cushioned wheels, But what is that to me? But what is that, to me Trudging here on the pave The farmer stares at the flashing car With face now fierce, now grave. With a look now fierce, new grave But when I chance to go Beside his field, he welcomes' me With a friendly, glad "Hullo!" With a friendly, glad "Hullo!" And the farm, boy laughs i' glee, And the farm girl smiles beside the wen With sweet simplicity. With dear simplicity Oh, a quaff of crystal wine She hands to me. Oh, witchery The simple life for mine! VERNE BRIGHT. 'THE SOIL'S VINTAGE." Dim and gray is the face of the sky (Now the days are red), Like the film that spreads over the eye Of a man that's dead. And the tired trees toss their tar nished treaure To the wind's rough tide; Broken the spell of their day's hot pleasure, Ended their pride. What was it worth all the sweet life growing Beneath the blue? But that the year's gaunt form Is showing Where the spirit grew. MARY ALTHEA WOODWARD. RAIN. Rain falls like moths of flurried wing. Pale, drifting, aimless On an impression of tall buildings, half seen A city, vaguely recalled as ifr a dream, " That lifts its lights among the moths And casts anemic shadows. Rain falls like moths of flurried wing, phosphorus upon the deed things of summer, flutters a faint damp lift among the weeds. KATHRYN EASTHAM. Like And