proffered to the State. In President Schurman's day legislators and executives have seen a new light, and, while not relieving the University of old burdens, have shown a willingness to provide for its assuming

new ones.

Thus first, on Governor Flower's advice, the State utilized the scientific laboratories of Cornell in the livestock interests of the Commonwealth, paying from its treasury for such additional teachers and laboratories as were needed to provide for giving a scientific three-year training to veterinary students and for the investigation of the causes, and agencies for

prevention, of animal diseases. Upon Governor Black's advice the State committed to Cornell the cause of its forests, establishing for the purpose a College of Forestry. In this case the State has to pay the salaries of only three teachers in giving a whole four-year course of instruction, the teachers, aside from these professional proficients in forestry, being the staff of mathematics, physics, civil engineering, etc., already existing and paid for by the University. In short, State and University have now entered into partnership, to the benefit of both alike.

To be sure there is a narrow limit to

this sort of thing. The legislature of New York will never follow the example set in other commonwealths of providing general college education for its youth. Languages from Sanskrit to Spanish, law and medicine, pure science, - everything in fact which does not in the most obvious and unmistakable manner affect the material interests of the State,- must always be provided for by private beneficence. It is therefore a matter of the greatest gratification that simultaneously with these State colleges there has been established a Cornell Medical College in the old Cornell way, upon private gift from a living man. Indeed it is thought that when this newest benefactor, Colonel Oliver H. Payne, has carried out his purpose of building up the best medical college in the world, he will have exceeded the gifts of Ezra Cornell and of Henry W. Sage.

It is worth noting that students in all colleges and departments of Cornell are Cornellians alike and upon an even footing. In some institutions the students in classical courses enjoy a primacy almost to the exclusion from college fellowship of students in science, law, medicine, etc. At Cornell the democracy of scholarship prevails throughout. The LL.B. of this institution does not speak of himself as a graduate of the College of Law, primarily. He is a Cornellian, upon the same footing in college fellowship, in college athletics, in college society, in the government of the University through alumni trustees, and in loyalty to Alma Mater, as the man who has taken any other degree, from A. B. to D.V.M.

By way of illustrating this Cornell catholicity of spirit two special departments, each the best of its kind, may be instanced: the one, the Sage School of Philosophy, falling partly within the Department of Arts and Sciences and partly within the Graduate Department; the other, the School of Marine Engineering and Naval Architecture, being a branch of the Sibley College of Mechanical Engineering.

The Sage School embraces a professorship of ethics, formerly filled by President Schurman and now by Dr. E. B. McGilvary, who is equally well known for his former work as a missionary to Siam and as an expositor of Hegel's philosophy; a chair of logic and metaphysics, filled by Dr. J. E. Creighton; a chair of ancient and mediaval philosophy, filled by Dr. William A. Hammond; a chair of psychology, filled

the Rev. Charles Mellen Tyler; and instructorships in logic, the history of philosophy, and psychology, filled by Dr. Ernest Albee, Dr. David Irons, and Dr. I. M. Bentley. It has six graduate scholarships worth $300 each per annum, and three fellowships worth $500 each per annum. It has struck root in the undergraduate portion of the University, but in addition it has always from twenty to twenty-five graduate students from all parts of the Union, from Canada, and even from the Old World. These students remain for from three to four years, studying for the degree of Ph. D., on attaining which they enter the teaching staffs of other universities. Three of them are employed in the University of Nebraska, and two in the University of Michigan. Others teach in Wellesley, Hamilton, Vassar, and Hobart Colleges, and in Brown, Columbia, and Colgate Universities. Virginia, Colorado, Missouri, Manitoba, and Indiana each has one. There is no better test of the solid worth of a university's work than the estimate set upon it in other universities, and there is no more reliable expression of this estimate than their tendency to draw teachers from a

tecture seeks to build upon a foundation of a four-year college course in mechanical engineering a superstructure of the most expert theoretical knowledge of the construction and propulsion of ships. Established about the same time as the Sage School of Philosophy, this school of engineering specialists has in seven years

turned out about seventy-five men, a few of them being found in the engineering branch of the navy and of the United States revenue cutter service, but the majority in the shipyards of the land. In the yards at Newport News alone, Professor Durand, the head of the school, found thirteen of them last summer. They have had a hand in the design and construction of the "Kearsarge," "Kentucky," and "Illinois." Another group of Cornellians in Cramps' yard have taken part in building the "Massachusetts," " ," "Brooklyn," "Minneapolis," "Iowa," and "Alabama." Still others have been engaged in designing and constructing torpedo-boats in

tion for the professorship of mathematics in the United States Naval Academy ahead of all competitors. Then the Navy Department found itself in a quandary, for it estimated his services as more valuable where he was. The objection to this theory, that the pay was less, was happily met by making the pay of the chief draughtsman in the office of the naval constructor equal to that of the professor of mathematics at Annapolis, and "the incident was closed." Thus year by year the shipbuilding interests of America have come to rest more and more upon the basis of trained intelligence and scientific knowledge prepared by Cornell. This organic connection with the material progress and greatness of the nation is something denied to institutions clinging exclusively to the "old-fashioned classical course," and it is a matter in which the patriotism of Cornellians takes especial pride. H. C. HOWE.

ITHACA, N. Y.

D

URING the past year or two we have

heard a great deal of discussion on the unity of the English-speaking peoples and the superiority of the AngloSaxon race over all other nations of the world. A spirit of antagonism to England and its institutions has given way to one of friendly admiration, and the feeling is becoming stronger every day that it is to the interests of both that Great Britain and the United States should in the future draw closer to one another.

In

No one among the public men of to-day, on either side of the Atlantic, has done more to bring about this better understanding between Britons and Americans than the Right Honorable James Bryce, author of "The American Commonwealth." Mr. Bryce is one of a number of men in Britain who are equally well known as publicists and as writers of books. fact he is not only a statesman and a man of letters, but much more: he is a trained observer who has travelled all over the world and obtained most of his knowledge at first hand and has not depended upon printed pages for the information on which to base his conclusions. Few politicians of to-day have that all-round knowledge of men and books that Mr. Bryce possesses, and the results of his investigations are recorded in a style that holds the reader's attention from the start.

James Bryce is a Scotch-Irishman, having been born in Belfast on the 10th of May, 1838, the eldest son of the late James Bryce, LL.D., of Glasgow. He attended the High School of the latter city and also its University, but was graduated from Trinity College, Oxford, after a distinguished career, in 1862.

In that year

he was elected to an Oriel Fellowship, which is considered the "blue ribbon » among Oxford honors; such distinguished men as John Henry Newman, Matthew Arnold, and Arthur Hugh Clough having been Fellows of Oriel College. In 1864 Mr. Bryce wrote "The Holy Roman Empire," a book that at once gave him a literary reputation. In this work the author had to cover almost the entire history of the world, and he displayed in it not only great learning but a high degree of historical power. After studying for the bar Mr. Bryce was appointed Regius Professor

of Civil Law at Oxford in 1870- the date of his first visit to America-and held that office until 1893. After several unsuccessful attempts he was in 1880 elected a Member of Parliament, and in 1886 was appointed Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. In 1892 he obtained a seat in the Cabinet as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and two years later he became President of the Board of Trade. He has also been a member of various Royal Commissions and is connected with numerous learned societies. The Universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Michigan have conferred upon him the degree of LL.D., and at present he represents the city of Aberdeen in parlia

ment.

Besides his "American Commonwealth," by which he is best known, Prof. Bryce has written a number of other works. His first book was published in 1859, and was entitled "The Flora of the Island of Arran.» "The Holy Roman Empire "was followed by a "Report on the Condition of Education in Lancashire in 1867," "The Trade Marks Regulation Acts, 1875 and 1876, with Introduction and Notes (1877); " "Transcaucasia and Ararat," the same year, and "The American Commonwealth" in 1888. Of this latter book several editions, each of them partly rewritten and brought up to date, have since appeared. In 1898 an account of his travels in South Africa was published under the title of "Impressions of South Africa," and was at once accepted as one of the best books written on that country.

Prof. Bryce has also written a great many articles on political, historical, geographical, social, and educational topics. for both British and American magazines, and he was at one time a regular contributor to "The Saturday Review." Had he chosen to adhere to historical work there is no doubt that he would have become one of the most eminent of British historians. But his ambition has been not only one of political distinction; he has travelled extensively and is of too active a temperament to find satisfaction in a life entirely devoted to study and research. And yet he is in all his varied accomplishments primarily and characteristically an Oxford don. Into all his practical concerns he

carries a flavor of scholastic life and is today the most complete specimen of the English university politician. Men of Prof. Bryce's knowledge and capacity are none too plentiful in the House of Commons, and as Under-Secretary of State during Gladstone's short administration his familiarity with foreign countries and

RT. HON. JAMES BRYCE, M.P.

politics stood him in good stead. Before he entered the Foreign Office he was twice offered by his chief a judicial position in India, the income of which amounted to $50,000 a year.

"The American Commonwealth" will take its place in literature as one, and probably the best, of many books written on one country for the information of another. It was written for statesmen and students of the Old World to enable them to understand the success or failure of the experiment that has been working itself out on this continent for the last hundred years. But so great is the author's admiration of the manner in which we have triumphed over the difficulties which at times have threatened us; so strong is his faith in our equally successful solution of the problems which may arise in the future; and so suggestive to Americans generally is his kindly estimate of what we have done,- that we naturally think

the work was written for us. It may now be safely said that Prof. Bryce's book has taken the place of De Tocqueville's once popular work, "Democracy in America." The Scotch-Irishman has appreciated better than the philosophic Frenchman the great intricacy of our system, the great extent to which its administration has modified its constitutional working, and the way in which the action of both officers and the law is modified by public action, which in parties moves in formal channels and in public opinion is felt through organs less formal but not less powerful.

It would be difficult to imagine a man better fitted for the production of such a work as "The American Commonwealth » than Prof. Bryce. Careful study of constitutional and political history, a thorough investigation of ancient and mediæval institutions, and a course of lectures on the common law, delivered for many years at Oxford, all combined to give him a scholarly preparation for his great theme, and this was supplemented by a knowledge of practical statesmanship acquired through years of service in the British Parliament and several visits to this country that extended to the Pacific slope. When he sat down to his work he did not endeavor to paint the merits of the institutions and people of America, but to depict them as they are, leaving it to the reader to draw his own conclusions. "I shall be far better pleased," he says in his book, "if readers of a philosophic turn find in the book matter on which they feel they can easily build theories for themselves, than if they take from it theories ready made." He questioned witnesses all over the country and noted down what struck him as salient and dominant facts, testing them afterwards by consulting authorities on the subject in the form of both men and books.

A little incident that came under the writer's eye two years ago gave him a vivid impression of the lively curiosity Mr. Bryce takes in everything around him and the marvellous alertness of his powers of observation. An account of it may afford the reader a glimpse of the distinguished statesman's method of picking up information when travelling abroad, and may also explain how some busy men acquire stores of knowledge not only vast but varied.

It was the week following the adjourn