Chapter XXX, pp. 241-247.

I knew that I had not yet been weaned from the spokes, and doubted if I ever should be. I said that I would try, and I did. I filed an application for the first leave of absence I had ever asked for from the railroad company, and it was granted. I found a man to assist the "devil" in getting out my paper, he doing the editing for pure love of editing, if not from love of the editor. We set our house in order, packed our trunk and grips, and when the specified fortnight was ended, we (my wife, my daughter, and myself) were comfortably bestowed in adjoining staterooms in the ladies' cabin of the "Mary Morton," and I was fidgeting about the boat, watching men "do things" as I had been taught, or had seen others do, twenty years ago or more.

The big Irish mate bullied his crew of forty "niggers," driving them with familiar oaths, to redoubled efforts in getting in the "last" packages of freight, which never reached the last. Among the rest, in that half hour, I saw barrels of mess pork--a whole car load of it, which the "nigger" engine was striking down into the hold. Shades of Abraham! pork _out_ of St. Paul! Twenty years before, I had checked out a whole barge load (three hundred barrels) through from Cincinnati, by way of Cairo. Cincinnati was the great porkopolis of the world, while Chicago was yet keeping its pigs in each back yard, and every freeholder "made" his own winter's supply of pork for himself. The steward in charge of the baggage was always in the way with a big trunk on the gangway, just as of old. The engineers were trying their steam, and slowly turning the wheel over, with the waste cocks open, to clear the cylinders of water. The firemen were coaxing the beds of coal into the fiercer heats. The chief clerk compared the tickets which were presented by hurrying passengers with the reservation sheet, and assigned rooms, all "the best," to others who had no reservations. The "mud" clerk checked his barrels and boxes and scribbled his name fiercely and with many flourishes to the last receipts. The pilot on watch, Mr. Burns, sat on the window ledge in the pilot house, and waited. The captain stood by the big bell, and listened for the "All ready, Sir!" of the mate. As the words were spoken, the great bell boomed out one stroke, the lines slacked away and were thrown off the snubbing posts. A wave of the captain's hand, a pull at once of the knobs of the wheel-frame, the jingle of a bell far below, the shiver of the boat as the great wheel began its work, and the bow of the "Mary Morton" swung to the south; a couple of pulls at the bell-rope, and the wheel was revolving ahead; in a minute more the escape pipes told us that she was "hooked up," and with full steam ahead we were on our way to St. Louis. And I was again in the pilot house with my old chief, who bade me "show us what sort of an education you had when a youngster."

Despite my forty years I was a boy again, and Tom Burns was the critical chief, sitting back on the bench with his pipe alight, a comical smile oozing out of the corners of mouth and eyes, for all the world like the teacher of old.

The very first minute I met the swing of the gangplank derrick (there is no jack staff on the modern steamboat, more's the pity), with two or three strokes when one would have been a plenty, yawing the boat around "like a toad in a hailstorm," as I was advised. I could feel the hot blood rushing to my cheeks, just as it did twenty years before under similar provocation, when the eye of the master was upon me. I turned around and found that Mr. Burns had taken it in, and we both laughed like boys--as I fancy both of us were for the time.

But I got used to it very soon, getting the "feel of it," and as the "Mary Morton" steered like a daisy I lined out a very respectable wake; though Tom tried to puzzle me a good deal with questions as to the landmarks, most of which I had forgotten save in a general way....

A mile or two below Hastings I saw the "break" on the surface of the water which marked the resting-place of the "Fanny Harris," on which I had spent so many months of hard work, but which, looked back upon through the haze of twenty years, now seemed to have been nothing but holiday excursions.

At Prescott I looked on the familiar water front, and into the attic windows where with my brother I had so often in the night watches studied the characteristics of boats landing at the levee. Going ashore I met many old-time friends, among whom was Charles Barnes, agent of the Diamond Jo Line, who had occupied the same office on the levee since 1858, and had met every steam boat touching the landing during all those years. He was the Nestor of the profession, and was one of the very few agents still doing business on the water front who had begun such work prior to 1860. Since then, within a few years past, he also has gone, and that by an accident, while still in the performance of duties connected with the steamboat business.

Dropping rapidly down the river, we passed Diamond Bluff without stopping, but rounded to at Red Wing for passengers and freight, and afterward headed into a big sea on Lake Pepin, kicked up by the high south wind that was still blowing. We landed under the lee of the sandpit at Lake City, and after getting away spent the better part of an hour in picking up a barge load of wheat, that was anchored out in the lake....

I turned in at an early hour, and lay in the upper berth, listening to the cinders skating over the roof a couple of feet above my face, and translating the familiar sounds that reached me from the engine-room and roof--the call for the draw at the railroad bridge, below the landing; the signal for landing at Wabasha; the slow bell, the stopping-bell, the backing bell, and a dozen or twenty unclassified bells, before the landing was fully accomplished; the engineer trying the water in the boilers; the rattle of the slice-bars on the sides of the furnace doors as the firemen trimmed their fires; and one new and unfamiliar sound from the engine-room--the rapid exhaust of the little engine driving the electric generator, the only intruder among the otherwise familiar noises, all of which came to my sleepy senses as a lullaby.

MRS. HATTIE TYNG GRISWOLD.

Hattie Tyng was born in Boston in 1840, and came with her parents to Columbus, Wisconsin, in 1850, where, in course of time, she was married to Mr. Griswold, and it was in this delightful village that much of her work as an author was done. Here she died in 1909.

The books by which she is best-known are: "Apple Blossoms," "Waiting on Destiny," "Lucile and Her Friends," and "The Home Life of Great Authors." It is from the last named book that our selection is taken. As its title would indicate, the book aimed to give a more personal and intimate view of men and women well-known to fame than is to be found in most reference works. The young readers of this volume will know that mere dates and statistics do not enable them to know people; they like to have some personal details as to the habits and daily lives of the people about whom they read. Mrs. Griswold was so filled with the true teaching instinct that she realized this. She says in one of her works that since she had such a hard time when she was a little girl getting any picture in her mind of the great people about whom she read, that she determined to make it easier for other boys and girls to get these mental pictures; that is why she wrote "The Home Life of Great Authors."

JOHN G. WHITTIER

From "HOME LIFE OF GREAT AUTHORS." Copyright, 1886, A. C. McClurg & Co.

The poet Whittier always calls to mind the prophet-bards of the olden time. There is much of the old Semetic fire about him, and ethical and religious subjects seem to occupy his entire mind. Like his own Tauler, he walks abroad, constantly

"Pondering the solemn Miracle of Life; As one who, wandering in a starless night, Feels momently the jar of unseen waves, And hears the thunder of an unknown sea Breaking along an unimagined shore."

His poems are so thoroughly imbued with this religious spirit that they seem to us almost like the sacred writings of the different times and nations of the world. They come to the lips upon all occasions of deep feeling almost as naturally as the Scriptures do. They are current coin with reformers the world over. They are the Alpha and Omega of deep, strong religious faith. Whoever would best express his entire confidence in the triumph of the right, and his reliance upon God's power against the devices of men, finds the words of Whittier upon his lips; and to those who mourn and seek for consolation, how naturally and involuntarily come back lines from his poems they have long treasured, but which perhaps never had a personal application until now! To the wronged, the down-trodden, and the suffering they appeal as strongly as the Psalms of David. He is the great High Priest of Literature. But few priests at any time have had such an audience and such influence as he. The moral and religious value of his work can scarcely be overstated. Who can ever estimate the power which his strong words have had throughout his whole career in freeing the minds of other millions from the shackles of unworthy old beliefs? His blows have been strong, steady, persistent. He has never had the fear of man before his eyes. No man has done more for freedom, fellowship and character in religion than he. Hypocrisy and falsehood and cant have been his dearest foes, and he has ridden at them early and late with his lance poised and his steed at full tilt. Indeed, for a Quaker, Mr. Whittier must be said to have a great deal of the martial spirit. The fiery, fighting zeal of the old reformers is in his blood. You can imagine him as upon occasion enjoying the imprecatory Psalms. In his anti-slavery poems there is a depth of passionate earnestness which shows that he could have gone to the stake for his opinions had he lived in an earlier age than ours. That he did risk his life for them, even in our own day, is well known. During the intense heat of the anti-slavery conflict he was mobbed once and again by excited crowds; but he was not to be intimidated by all the powers of evil, and continued to speak his strong words and to sing his inspiring songs, whether men would hear or whether they would forbear. And those Voices of Freedom, whatever may be thought of them by mere critics and litterateurs, will outlast any poems of their day, and sound "down the ringing grooves of Time" when much that is now honored has been forgotten. He will be known as the Poet of a great Cause, the Bard of Freedom, as long as the great anti-slavery conflict is remembered. He is a part, and an important part, of the history of his country, a central figure in the battalions of the brave. Those wild, stirring bugle-calls of his cheered the little army, and held it together many a time when the cause was only a forlorn hope, and they came with their stern defiance into the camp of the enemy with such masterful power that some gallant enemies deserted to his side. They were afraid to be found fighting against God, as Whittier had convinced them they were doing. There is the roll of drums and the clash of spears in these stirring strains; there are echoes from Thermopylae and Marathon, and the breath of the old Greek heroes is in the air; there is a hint of the old Border battle-cries from Scotland's hills and tarns; from Jura's rocky wall we can catch the cheers of Tell; and the voice of Cromwell can often be distinguished in the strain.

There is also the sweep of the winds through the pine woods, and the mountain blasts of New England, and the strong, fresh breath of the salt sea; all tonic influences, in short, which braced up the minds of the men of those days to a fixed and heroic purpose, from which they never receded until their end was achieved. It has become the fashion in these days of dilettanteism to say that earnestness and moral purpose have no place in poetry, and small critics have arisen who claim that Mr. Whittier has been spoiled as a poet by his moral teachings. To these critics it is only necessary to point to the estimation in which Mr. Whittier's poetry is held by the world, and to the daily widening of his popularity among scholars and men of letters, as well as among the people, to teach them that this ruined poetry is likely to live when all the merely pretty poetry they so much admire is forgotten forever. The small poets who are afraid of touching a moral question for fear of ruining their poems would do well to compare Poe, who is the leader of their school and its best exponent, with Mr. Whittier, and to ask themselves which is the more likely to survive the test of time. Let them also ponder the words of Principal Shairp, one of the finest critics of the day, when he says of the true mission of the poet, that "it is to awaken men to the divine side of things; to bear witness to the beauty that clothes the outer world, the nobility that lies hid, often obscured, in human souls; to call forth sympathy for neglected truths, for noble and oppressed persons, for down-trodden causes; and to make men feel that through all outward beauty and all pure inward affection God himself is addressing them." They would do well also to ponder the words of Ruskin, who believes that only in as far as it has a distinct moral purpose is a literary work of value to the world.

ALBERT H. SANFORD.

Professor Albert H. Sanford, of the La Crosse State Normal School, is best known as an author of text books and pamphlets on history and related subjects. But he is, like all the other school men whose works are represented here, interested in other fields besides his specialty.

Born in the southwestern part of Wisconsin, he naturally became interested in farming, and in the development of agriculture in the agricultural section. From this interest and his natural bent toward anything historical grew his desire to picture briefly and attractively the development of this most important industry of our country from its early beginnings in colonial times to the present day. His book is filled with narratives and expositions which will hold the interest of any boy or girl who likes to read stories of adventure or trial, of hardship, and of final success.

The most noteworthy feature of Professor Sanford's style is clarity, coupled with logical sequence and organization. The brief selection here given illustrates these qualities, and represents very fairly the remainder of the book.

THE STORY OF AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES

Copyright, 1916, by D. C. Heath & Co. From Chapter X.

When farms were scattered, life became lonely and monotonous; the people therefore took advantage of every possible occasion to have social gatherings. House raisings and log-rollings gave opportunity for such meetings. The women met in sewing and quilting bees and apple-parings; the men came for the evening meal and remained for the country dance. The husking-bee was the most exciting of these events. The long pile of corn was divided equally between two leaders, who first "chose sides" for the contest. Then the men fell to the work with a will, each side determined to finish its portion first. Sometimes the rivalry ran into rough play and even fighting; but the spirit of good nature prevailed at the supper that had been prepared by the women in the meantime.

To these "frolics" were added, in later years, the spelling matches and singing schools, attended by both old and young. The coming of the backwoods "circuit rider" to hold a religious service in some log cabin or in the schoolhouse was an event of importance. The summer "camp meetings" were attended by hundreds of families, and here a chance was given for those who had forgotten the ways of civilized life in the midst of the rough frontier conditions to be "converted" and to return to better ways. The preaching, singing, and praying were all done by main strength, both of voice and of muscle.

The frontier farmer boy had no lack of occupation. He split the kindling and the wood for the fire-place and gathered the chips used for lighting the cabin when tallow dips were scarce. He fed and drove the cows, but let his sister do the milking. He took part in the work of washing and shearing the sheep. He helped in churning and soap-making, and ran the melted tallow into the tin candle-molds. He looked forward to butchering day as to a celebration. In the fall he chopped the sausage meat and the various ingredients of mince pies. On stormy days and winter evenings he might help his mother clean and card the wool, wind the yarn, and hetchel flax. Later she might call upon him for help in dyeing the homespun and bleaching the linen.

The boy was useful to his father when he searched the woods for good trees from which special articles were to be made, such as ax-helves and ox-yokes. From hickory saplings he could make splint brooms and cut out the splints used in making chair bottoms and baskets. He guarded the corn fields from squirrels and crows and set traps for wolves. He went on horse-back to the grist mill, which was generally some miles away, and waited there for his turn to have his sack of corn ground into meal. Along with these duties were some pleasures, such as going nutting and berrying and hunting for grapes. Bee-hunting gave its rich reward in the hollow trunk full of honey. "Sugaring off" twice in the spring was a special time of delight, though it brought its tasks in the making of wooden spouts, the carrying of buckets of sap and water, and the tending of fires.

CHARLES D. STEWART

Charles D. Stewart was born at Zanesville, Ohio, in 1868, and came with his people to Wisconsin when but a young boy. He received his elementary education in the public schools of Milwaukee, after which he attended Wayland Academy at Beaver Dam. Like many others of our authors, Mr. Stewart has had considerable connection with newspapers, but it is as an author of stories, poems, and critical articles, both in magazines and in published volumes, that he is best known. Perhaps the readers of this book are already familiar with his "The Fugitive Blacksmith," "Partners of Providence," "Essays on the Spot," "The Wrong Woman," etc. He is now executive clerk in Governor Philipp's office.

Mr. Stewart is an author with whom the reader frequently finds himself in disagreement. This is particularly true of his critical work, which has itself received severe criticism at the hands of some other critics, while in the opinion of still others Mr. Stewart has made distinct contributions to the field of English criticism, particularly with respect to Shakespeare. His style is rich and at times diffuse. He has a wealth of illustrative material at hand, and one might be inclined to say that at times Mr. Stewart allows himself to stray too far from his main theme in drawing upon these resources. On the other hand, the reader is constantly interested and frequently challenged, so that his intelligence is always brought into play in reading this author's work; and it is well to remember, as Ruskin says, that if we never read anything with which we disagreed we should never grow. It is the author who makes us think who does us the greatest service.

The selection here given is from "On a Moraine." It illustrates all the points of which we have spoken. To the editors it appeals as a piece of useful, patriotic Wisconsin literature. The whole article will well repay reading for anyone who loves the Badger state and wishes to know it better. It shows a keen appreciation of the beautiful, and ready imagination in making comparisons where one least expects to find them, as in the suggestion of likeness between the freshly exposed surfaces of a newly split rock, on the one hand, and the wings of a moth on the other.

The article also well illustrates the treatment of a somewhat technical and supposedly dry subject in a delightful and imaginative manner.

ON A MORAINE

Upon the shoulder of a terminal moraine was a barley-field whose fence was to furnish me with stone; and I prospected its beauties with a six-pound sledge. "Hardheads" many of them [the stones] were called, and they let fly enough sparks that summer to light the fire for a thousand years. They were igneous rocks, and they responded in terms of fire.

Such rocks! Rag-carpets woven in garnet and topaz; petrified Oriental rugs; granites in endless designs of Scotch mixture, as if each bowlder were wearing the plaid of its clan; big, uncouth, scabiose, ignorant-looking hardheads that opened with a heart of rose,--each one a separate album opening to a sample from a different quarry. I have seen cloven field-stone that deserved a hinge and a gold clasp; I have one in sight now which is such a delicate contrast of faintest rose and mere spiritual green that it is like the first blush of dawn. Imagine smiting a rock until the fragments sting you in the face, and then seeing it calmly unfold the two wings of a moth! I have broken into a rock which pleased me so well that I held it in mind in order to match it; but though I had the pick of a hundred and sixty loads that summer I never found another. There is "individuality" for you.

Some of them are "niggerheads." These are the hardest rock known to practical experience. There are those that have refused to succumb to the strongest hitters in the country. Some of them will break and others will not; the only way is to try. Fortunately I had had some early training as a blacksmith; but this was as if the smith were trying to break his anvil. I have seen the steel face of a hammer chip off without making a mark on one. And yet the glaciers wore them off to make soil and left them rounded like big pebbles! I never realized what ground is, till I became acquainted with the stones that did the grinding.

My fence was eight to ten feet in thickness and shoulder high; and similar windrows of rock ran over the moraine in all directions, like a range upon a range. It is, of course, valuable land that warrants a wall like that. The barley-field might easily have defied a siege-gun on all four sides, for it had had so many bowlders on it that they had been built up into more of a rampart than a windrow. On a near-by field from which the timber had been removed, but which, notwithstanding, was far from "cleared," it looked as if it had hailed bowlders. You could have forded your way across it without putting a foot to ground. I have seen places where the glaciers had deposited rocks in surprising uniformity of size, and as thick as the heads of an audience (a comparison that means no harm, I trust).

Because of my encounters with "niggerheads," and other layerless or massive rock, I had difficulty in getting a handle which would not give out. Not that I broke them with mislicks, but the sudden bounce of the steel jolts the grain of the wood apart, and then a split begins to work its way up the handle. After this happens a man will not try to crack many bowlders, for the split hickory vibrates in a way that hurts. That sudden sting and numbing of the arm is the only sensation I ever came across that resembles the sting of a Texas scorpion; and that is an injection of liquid lighting that suffuses the membranes from hand to shoulder, and dwells a while and fades away. I might say here that the sting of the dreaded scorpion is harmless, like that of the tarantula, as any one with a few experiences knows. A wrong-headed bowlder that has kept itself intact for ages and spits fire at you, and then takes measures to protect itself, is far more dangerous. One of them shot off a piece with such force that it went through my clothing and made a respectable wound. This, however, is just what is needed to rouse you up and make you hit back; and when you have had success with this one you are sure to pass on to another.

There is an enticement in their secret, locked-up beauty that lures you on from rock to rock till nightfall. Thus you are kept at it, till some day you find you have become a slave of the exercise habit; you are addicted to sunshine and sweat and cool spring water; your nose, so long a disadvantage to you, comes to life and discovers so many varieties of fresh air that every breath has a different flavor to it. As for myself, I rather prefer to take wild plum or clover in my atmosphere--or a good whiff of must off the barley-field. Along in July it is excellent to work somewhere in the jurisdiction of a basswood tree. Compare this with the office-building or the street-car, where the only obtainable breath is second-hand. Nobody could now coax you back to where people have eyes that see not, tongues that taste not, and noses that smell not unless they have to. I _have_ experienced smells in a city that would make a baby cry....

And this reminds me to conclude--where possibly I should have begun--with the remarkable pedigree of the state itself. Stretching across Canada, north of the St. Lawrence, and ending in the regions about the source of the Mississippi, is a range of low granite hills called the Laurentian Highlands. These hills are really mountains that are almost worn out, for they are the oldest land in America, and, according to Agassiz, the oldest in the world. In the days when there was nothing but water on the face of the globe, these mountains came up--a long island of primitive rock with universal ocean chafing against its shores. None of the other continents had put in their appearance at the time America was thus looking up. The United States began to come to light by the gradual uplifting of this land to the north and the appearance of the tops of the Alleghanies, which were the next in order. Later, the Rockies started up. The United States grew southward from Wisconsin and westward from Blue Ridge. An early view of the country would have shown a large island which is now northern Wisconsin, and a long, thin tongue of this primitive rock sticking down from Canada into Minnesota, and these two growing states looking out over the waters at the mere beginnings of mountain-ranges east and west. They were waiting for the rest of the United States to appear.

As the heated interior of the earth continued to cool and contract, and the water-covered crust sank in some places, and kept bulging up higher in others, the island of northern Wisconsin continued to grow, and the Alleghanies came up with quite a strip of territory at their base. The western mountains made no progress whatever; it was as if they had some doubt about the matter. A view at another stage of progress would have shown Wisconsin and Minnesota entirely out, and pulling up with them the edges of adjoining states, and a strip along the Atlantic about half as wide as New York or Pennsylvania. Still no United States. There was water between these two sections and some islands scattered about in the south. The western mountains had not been progressing at all; they lagged behind for aeons. These two sections, beginning with Wisconsin and Minnesota in the west and the Alleghanies in the east, kept reaching out till they made continuous land; and thus Ohio and all those states between are some ages younger. But they are much older than the west; for at a time when the whole eastern half of the continent had long appeared, the Gulf Stream was flowing across the west, and the waters were depositing the small sea-shells which make the calcareous matter under Kansas loam. All that country is much younger, and the western mountains are as big as they are simply because they have not had time to become worn down. As to Florida, it was a mere afterthought, an addition built on by coral insects.

The whole story of those east-central and southern states--how Pennsylvania and Ohio and Illinois got their coal, and Michigan her salt--would make a lengthy narrative; I have mentioned just enough to show the age of Wisconsin and the still greater age of some of that glacial matter that came down from the direction of the Laurentian Highlands. It is the oldest land in the world; and the other states, I am sure, will not resent my taking out the state's pedigree and showing it. Wisconsin took part with the east in what geologists call the Appalachian Revolution,--is a veritable Daughter of the Revolution. I mention it merely because I think it greatly to the credit of a dairy state that, at a time so early in the world's morning, she was up and doing.

ELLIOTT FLOWER

Elliott Flower is another of Wisconsin's writers who came into the field of literature through newspaper work. He was born at Madison in 1863, and after receiving a common school education there, he went to Phillips Academy at Massachusetts. He was editor of the Rambler in 1885 and 1886, and after that he was for some years engaged in editorial work on Chicago papers. Since 1899, however, most of his work has been of a purely literary nature, and his residence has been in Madison for some time. He is the author of "Policeman Flynn," "The Spoilsman," "Nurse Norah," "Delightful Dog," and other books.

The story from which we quote is "The Impractical Man." It is fairly representative of a considerable portion of his work. It shows a keen sense of humor, a skillful handling of conversation, and considerable knowledge of human nature. Our selection embraces the first and last portions of the story. Between these selections many experiences fall to the lot of the "impractical man." There is an adventure in the woods, in which the men are lost, and there are many laughable experiences in a canoe. In this story, as is frequently the case in Mr. Flower's work, the unexpected happens, and the character whom the reader has been inclined to pity because of his inability to take care of himself suddenly proves to be shrewd enough to outwit those with whom he is dealing.

THE IMPRACTICAL MAN

From the Century Magazine, Vol. 64, p. 549.

"I am sorry to inform you," said Shackelford, the lawyer, "that you have been to some trouble and expense to secure a bit of worthless paper. This--" and he held up the document he had been examining--"is about as valuable as a copy of last week's newspaper."

It is possible that Shackelford really regretted the necessity of conveying this unpleasant information to Peter J. Connorton, Cyrus Talbot, and Samuel D. Peyton; but, if so, his looks belied him, for he smiled very much as if he found something gratifying in the situation.

Connorton was the first to recover from the shock.

"Then it's a swindle!" he declared hotly. "We'll get that fellow Hartley! He's a crook! We'll make him--"

"Oh, no," interrupted Shackelford, quietly, "it's no swindle. According to your own story, you prepared the paper yourself and paid him for his signature to it."

"We paid him twenty-five thousand dollars for his patent," asserted Connorton.

"But you didn't get the patent," returned Shackelford. "He has assigned to you, for a consideration of twenty-five thousand dollars, all his rights, title, and interest in something or other, but the assignment doesn't clearly show what. There are a thousand things that it might be, but nothing that it definitely and positively _is_. Very likely he doesn't know this, but very likely somebody will tell him. Anyhow, you've got to clear an unquestioned title before you can do anything with the patent without danger of unpleasant consequences."

Deeper gloom settled upon the faces of the three, and especially upon the face of Connorton, who was primarily responsible for their present predicament.

"What would you advise?" asked Connorton at last.

"Well," returned the lawyer, after a moment of thought, "you'd better find him. As near as I can make out, he had no thought of tricking you."

"Oh, no, I don't believe he had," confessed Connorton. "I spoke hastily when I charged that. He's too impractical for anything of the sort."

"Much too impractical, I should say," added Talbot, and Peyton nodded approval.

"In that case," pursued the lawyer, "you can still clinch the deal easily and quickly--if you get to him first. I see nothing particularly disturbing in the situation, except the possibility that somebody who _is_ practical may get hold of him before you do, or that he may learn in some other way of the value of his invention. Do you know where he is?"

"No," answered Connorton. "That's the trouble."

"Not so troublesome as it might be," returned the lawyer. "He is not trying to hide, if we are correct in our surmise, and his eccentricities of dress and deportment would attract attention to him anywhere. I have a young man here in the office who will get track of him in no time, if you have nothing better to suggest."

They had nothing better to suggest, so Byron Paulson was called in, given a description of Ira Hartley, together with such information as to his associates and haunts as it was possible to give, and sent in quest of news of him.

"Meanwhile," observed the lawyer, "I'll prepare something for his signature, when we find him, that will have no loopholes in it."

* * * * *

Connorton and Paulson had no difficulty in securing permission to talk with Hartley, and they approached with considerable confidence the cell in which he was detained. It had occurred to them, upon reflection, that they were now in a most advantageous position in the matter of their business relations with the inventor. He was friendless in a strange city. He was believed to be of unsound mind, and his actions had been erratic enough to give color to that belief. He could hardly hope to secure his release without their help, and if so, they could impose their own terms before extending that help.

To their surprise, they found him quite cheerful and apparently indifferent or blind to the seriousness of his predicament.

"Hullo, Connorton!" he cried, when he saw them approaching. "Any other proposition to make now?"

"Why, no, certainly not," replied Connorton. "We came to see about you."

"Awfully good of you," laughed Hartley. "How you do love me, Connorton!"

Connorton's face reddened, but he ignored the thrust. "You've got yourself in a nice fix, Hartley," he remarked.

"Oh, it's of no consequence," exclaimed Paulson.

"Not to me," asserted Hartley. "It may be to you, of course."

The impractical man appeared to be able to take a very practical view of some matters, and Connorton was the more perturbed and uneasy in consequence.

"They say you're crazy," suggested Connorton.

"And I guess they can prove it, too," rejoined Hartley, cheerfully. "You've said the same thing yourself, and I know you wouldn't lie about a mere trifle like that. Then, the conductor, the engineer, and the fireman of the train we came down on will swear to it ... not to mention the cooper, the hotel clerk, a few bell-boys, and the policeman who arrested me. Yes, I guess I'm crazy, Connorton. Too bad, isn't it?"

"It's likely to be bad for you," said Connorton.

"Oh, no," returned Hartley, easily, "I'm not violent, you know, just mentally defective; unable to transact business, as you might say. They'll find that out and let me go; but there will be the taint, the suspicion, the doubt. Very likely a conservator will be appointed when I get back home--some shrewd, sharp fellow, with a practical mind."

Such a very impractical man was the inventor, and so very troublesome in his impracticality! Connorton could only begin at the beginning again, and go slow.

"Suppose we get you out," he ventured, "what would you be willing to do?"

"What would you be willing to do?" retorted Hartley.

"What do you mean by that?" demanded Connorton.

"I'm sure I don't know," replied Hartley, with an air of the utmost frankness. "I seldom mean anything, of course, and it is such a lot of trouble to find out what I do mean when I mean anything that I usually give it up. But you are so deeply interested in me--so much more interested in me than I am in myself--that I thought you might want to keep me sane; that you might not like to feel that you had driven me crazy."

Paulson was about to interrupt, but Connorton motioned to him to be silent. Connorton was in the habit of handling his own business matters, and he wanted his lawyer to speak only when a legal proposition was put directly up to him. It may be admitted that he was sorely perplexed now; but he found nothing in the inventor's face but a bland smile, and he did not think Paulson could help him to interpret that.

"Hartley," he said at last, "I'll get you out of here and add five thousand to what you've already had the moment that patent is properly transferred to me."

"Connorton," returned the inventor, "I believe I'm crazy. When I think of the events of the last few days--of your more than brotherly interest in me, which I have pleasurably exploited during our delightful association--I believe I am crazy enough to say, come again!"

Connorton drew a long breath and conceded another point. "Hartley," he proposed, "you may keep the money I have already given you--"

"Thank you," said Hartley; "I shall."

"--and you may also have a quarter interest in the patent," concluded Connorton.

"It's all mine now," suggested Hartley.

"If so," argued Connorton, who well knew that much of the money had been spent, "you owe me twenty-five thousand dollars."

"If so," returned Hartley, the impractical man, "I infer from your anxiety and extraordinary generosity that I can sell it for enough to pay you and make a little margin for myself. Besides, you can't collect from a crazy man, Connorton; and I'm getting crazier every minute. Business always goes to my head, Connorton. You must have noticed that up in the woods. I'm really becoming alarmed about myself. But perhaps, you'd rather do business with a conservator, Connorton."

"A half interest," urged Connorton, desperately, as he mentally reviewed the weakness of his own position in view of the unsuspected perspicacity of the inventor. "Consider that I have paid you twenty-five thousand dollars for a half interest, and the other half is yours. I'll defray whatever expense is incurred in marketing the invention, too."

Hartley reflected, seeming in doubt. "Connorton," he said at last, "I think I am still getting the worst of it somewhere, but an impractical fellow like me deserves to get the worst of it. Go ahead! Have that agreement put in legal form, and then you may get me out while there is yet time to save my reason."

* * * * *

Connorton had finished his appeal for the release of Hartley. "Of course," he was told, "if you and Mr. Paulson will assume the responsibility and will immediately take him away, we shall be glad to let you have him; but he is undoubtedly demented."

"Demented!" snorted Connorton. "Say! you try to do business with him, and you'll think he's the sanest man that ever lived!"

JENKIN LLOYD JONES.

Jenkin Lloyd Jones is one of the best-known Wisconsin ministers. We say "Wisconsin," for, though he is now a resident of Chicago, his parents moved from South Wales to Wisconsin in 1843 when Jenkin Lloyd Jones was an infant. During his boyhood he worked on the home farm; then in 1862 he enlisted, and served for three years in the Sixth Wisconsin Battery in the Civil War. He is a graduate of the Meadville, Pennsylvania, theological seminary of the class of 1870. He holds an honorary degree of LL. D. granted by the University of Wisconsin in 1909. He was pastor of All Souls Church, Janesville, from 1871 to 1880. He established, with others, "Unity," a weekly paper, now organ of the Congress of Religion, and has been its editor since 1879. He organized All Souls Church in Chicago, and has been its pastor since 1882. He is the author of almost countless pamphlets and several books, among the latter being "Love and Loyalty," "What Does Christmas Really Mean," "On the Firing Line in the Battle for Sobriety," and his creative instinct has shown itself in the organization of many societies and institutions for the uplift of mankind.

NUGGETS FROM A WELSH MINE

Copyrighted by Olive E. Weston, 1902.

THE HOME (Page 14).

Love is the only safe and justifiable basis for a home. All Bibles, as well as all stories, all philosophy and all experience assert this.

Go to housekeeping, and, if possible, to house-building. Do not be outdone by the beaver. Do not sink lower than the bird, who builds its own nest, making it strong without and beautiful within.

That home alone is home where love generates generous impulses, noble purposes. True love will breed heavenly plans, nurse world-redeeming schemes, and enlist all the forces of earth in the interests of heaven.

There is no home where there is no common toil.

The world is the larger home. The child must early learn to feel its dependence on and its obligation to this larger home circle if it is to grow noble.

There are no furnishings to a house that really convert it into a home, which have not won their places, one by one, in the heart and brain of the housewife.

Civilization rests, not primarily on the court-house, or the college, or the public school building, or the post-office, or the railway station, or yet in the club, but in the home.

The trouble with our young people is not that they are too poor in material things to make for themselves a home, but that they are too poor in spiritual things to confess the poverty which might enable them to lay the foundations of a home, humble but altogether holy....

The beautiful heron, mad with a maternal love, blind to all dangers from without, bent only on protecting her brood, giving her life to her little ones, was killed by the woman who wears the graceful aigrette--that marvel of Nature's embroidery woven for a nuptial robe to the gracious bird. She, and none other, is responsible for that life, for it was for her sake that the bloody deed was done.

THE SCHOOL (Page 29).

The highest task that life holds for men and women is the choosing of an ideal to grow toward. It should be sufficiently far away to require a whole lifetime to pursue it.

It has taken a hundred years of agony and study to prove even in advanced America a man's right to his own body; a woman's right to her old soul; and the child's right to the development of his mind as of his muscle.

I plead for the true perspective in the training of your children. I believe, of course, in good bodies, comfortable and beautiful clothing, generous houses, and all the learning of the schools; I believe in intellectual joy and all the powers of thought, but only when they are subordinated to high affections and strong wills.

There is a power at work in the world that estimates gifts, not by the amount, but by the purpose that dictated them.

The kindergarten contains the seed of the gospel for children in its terminology when it seeks to develop the child by its "occupations."...

WORK (Page 111).

There can be no development, mental, spiritual, or physical, except by exercise.

Through labor we became creators, co-workers with God. Labor can be transfigured into a habit.

In the scales of the universe, a day's work will always weigh more than the dollar that pays for that day's work.

The tradesman who strives to know all about his own business and cares but little about any other, will not have much business of his own to absorb his attention after a while.

Blessed word is that,--"occupation." The new education is bound up in it. The health of the child is contained in it. The safety of the saint is represented by it, and the progress of humanity is dependent upon it.

When labor becomes the pride of the laborer, then he becomes fit object for the envy of kings.

The most disordered explosions of pent-up passions and unreleased power follow in the wake of enforced idleness.

There is no release from toil, and the only escape from the burdens of labor must come, not by its cessation, but by its glorification.

There is an overwork that is killing, but the danger from work, any work, all work, is trifling compared to the greater dangers of indolence.

There is always a large physical element in distances. It is always farther from the breakfast table to the field than it is from the field to the dinner table.

When the wheels of life bear me down for the last time, I ask for no higher compliment, I seek no truer statement of the work I have tried to do, than that which the white-headed old negress gave the beardless boy on the hot Corinth cornfield in 1862. Then, if I deserve it, let some one who loves me say, "Here is a Linkum soldier who has done got run over," one who, like his leader, tried to "pluck a thistle and plant a flower wherever a flower would grow."

EVERETT McNEIL.

MOTHER'S WOLF STORY

By Everett McNeil, for many years a resident of Stoughton, Wis., now living in New York. Taken from St. Nicholas, Vol. XXX, p. 387. Copyright by The Century Co.

(For many years a resident of Stoughton; now living in New York. Author of The Cave of Gold, In Texas with Davy Crockett, The Totem of Black Hawk, Fighting with Fremont, The Boy Forty-Niners, etc.)

When I was a boy there was one story which my sisters and brothers and I were never tired of hearing mother tell; for our own mother was its heroine and the scene of the thrilling chase was not more than a mile and a half from our own door. Indeed, we often went coasting on the very hill down which she took her fearful ride, and skated on the pond which was the scene of her adventure. I can still distinctly remember how, when the long winter evenings came and the snow lay deep on the ground and the wind whistled stormily without, we children would gather around the great sheet-iron stove in the sitting-room of the old farm-house and beg mother to tell us stories of the perils and hardships of her pioneer days; and how, invariably, before the evening was over some one of us would ask: "Now, mother, please do tell us, just once more, how you escaped from the wolves, when a girl, by coasting down Peek's Hill."

Mother would pause in her knitting, and, with a smile, declare that she had already told us the story "forty-eleven times"; but, just to please so attentive an audience, she would tell it even once more. Then, while we children crowded closer around her chair, she would resume her knitting and begin:

"When your grandfather settled in this part of Wisconsin I was a little girl thirteen years old. We moved into the log house father had prepared for us early in the spring, and by fall we had things fixed quite comfortable. The winter which followed was one of unusual severity. The snow fell, early in November, to the depth of three feet on the level; and the greater part of it remained on the ground all winter. This, of course, made grand coasting. Father made for me a sled with strong, hard, smooth hickory runners, and big enough for two to ride on. I declare, I don't believe there ever was such another sled for speed"; and mother's eyes would sparkle at the memories the thought of her faithful sled recalled.

"At this time the country was very thinly populated. Our nearest neighbor was Abner Jones, who lived some three miles away, over on the other side of Peek's Hill. Abner Jones had a little girl, named Amanda, about my own age, and we two children soon became great chums. After a big snow-storm, Amanda and I would go coasting on Peek's Hill whenever we could gain the permission of our parents. She would come over to my house, or I would go over to her house, and together we would go to the hill. Amanda had no sled; but we could both ride down on my sled, and then take turns pulling it up the hill.

"The first week in January there was a two-days' thaw, followed by a sharp freeze. This caused a thick, icy crust to form on top of the remaining snow, which, by the next day, became so hard and strong that it would bear the weight of a man. The water from the melted snow ran into the hollow at the foot of Peek's Hill, and made a large, deep pond, which was soon covered over with a sheet of gleaming ice. So, you see, Peek's Hill had become an ideal coasting-place; for we could slide down its steep side at lightning speed, and out upon the ice, and even clear across the pond, a good three-quarters of a mile from the top of the hill.

"On one Saturday afternoon following a thaw and a freeze-up, I secured the permission of my parents to go over to Amanda's and get her to come sliding with me down the hill. Father cautioned me to be sure and be home early, because the wolves, which at that time infested all this section of the country, were said to be getting very bold and fierce, especially at night time; and they had been known, when driven by hunger, to run down and kill horses and cattle and even human beings. Doubtless the cold and the deep snow had forced many southward from the great woods in the northern part of the State. But the caution fell on idle ears. I considered all wolves cowards; besides, I was not going to hunt wolves; I was bent upon coasting down-hill; and I did not believe any wolf would be foolish enough to take the trouble to run down a little girl when there were plenty of chickens and cattle to be had.

"I bundled up warmly, and, drawing my sled behind me, started 'cross lots over Peek's Hill to Amanda's house. Peek's Hill stood about half-way between our two homes. I left the heavy sled at the top of the hill to wait our return. When I reached the house I found Amanda laid up with a bad cold, and of course her mother would not allow her to go coasting; so I took off my things to stay in the house and play with her. Amanda had two rubber dolls, and we had such a jolly time playing with them that I did not notice how fast the time was passing until Mrs. Jones said, 'Come, my dear; it is time you were going!' Then she helped to bundle me up, gave me a doughnut hot from the kettle, and saw me safely started on my way home.

"The sun was nearing the western horizon. I glanced at it and hurried on. The first part of my way lay through heavy woods; then came an opening, in the midst of which rose Peek's Hill. The brow of the hill was perhaps forty rods from the edge of the woods, the steep incline down which we coasted being on the opposite side. There was no road, only a path worn through the snow by our neighborly feet.

"I had passed about half-way through the woods, when suddenly a great shaggy wolf bounded out into the path in front of me. The wolf stopped and glared hungrily at me for a moment, then dashed away into the brush. A moment after, I heard him howling a few rods in the rear. To my inexpressible horror, the howl was quickly answered by another, and then another, and still another, until to my terrified ears the woods seemed full of the ferocious beasts.

"There was no need of telling me what this meant. I was old enough and familiar enough with wolf-nature to know that the first wolf was calling to his mates to come and help him run down and kill his quarry.

"For a moment I stood still in my tracks, listening in trembling horror to the hideous howlings; then I gathered myself together and ran. Fear lent me wings. My feet seemed hardly to touch the snow. And yet it was but a minute before I heard the rapid pit-pat of the feet of the wolves on the hard crust of the snow behind me, and knew that they were drawing near. I reached the edge of the woods; and, as I dashed into the opening, I cast a hurried glance to the rear. Several great, gaunt wolves, running neck and neck, were not five rods behind me. They ran with their heads outstretched, making great bounds over the hard snow.

"At that time I was tall for my age, and could run like a deer. The sight of the wolves, so close behind me, caused me to redouble my efforts; but, in spite of my speed, as I reached the brow of the hill, I could hear their panting breaths, so near had they come. With a quick movement of my hands I threw off my heavy cloth cape and woolen hood. At the same instant my eyes caught sight of the sled, which I had left at the top of the hill. Fortunately it was standing facing the steep incline. If I could reach it before the wolves caught me, possibly I might yet escape! My hood and cape delayed the animals for an instant; but they were again upon me just as I, without slacking my speed in the least, caught the sled up into my hands and threw myself upon it.

"I think the sudden change in my position, just as they were about to spring on me, must have disconcerted the wolves for an instant; and before they recovered I was sliding down the hill. The wolves came tumbling and leaping after me, howling and snarling. At the start, the hill was very steep, and the frozen snow was as smooth and as slippery as ice. The sled kept going faster and faster, and soon I had the inexpressible delight of seeing that I was beginning to leave the wolves behind. Far below I saw the gleaming ice on the pond. About half-way down the hill the incline was considerably less steep, becoming nearly level just before reaching the pond. When I came to this part of the hill I again glanced behind, and, to my horror, saw that the wolves had begun to gain on me, and were now not more than two rods away. Evidently the sled was slowing up. There was nothing I could do to quicken its motion. My fate seemed certain. At last the sled reached the pond, and, while still but a few feet from the bank, I suddenly felt the ice bend and crack beneath me; but either my speed was too rapid or my weight too light, or both, for I did not break through, but sped swiftly on to stronger ice and to safety. For a moment the slippery ice delayed the wolves, then they came on swifter than ever, their sharp claws scratching the ice like knives. Finally I heard a crash, and glancing back, I saw a struggling jumble of heads and paws, and I knew in a moment that the combined weight of the wolves had broken through the ice at the weak place that had cracked as I passed over it.

"I left the sled at the margin of the pond, and hurried home, where, girl-like, I fell fainting into my mother's arms.

"There, children; that is how your mother escaped from the wolves by coasting down Peek's Hill; and that great wolfskin robe in the corner is one of the very hides that father took from the six bodies after he had dragged them out of the pond the next morning"; and mother, with a flush on her dear face, would point to the familiar wolfskin robe.

Then we children would bring the great robe from its place, spread it out on the floor before the fire, and, seating ourselves upon it, talk in low voices of the terrible ride our dear mother took down Peek's Hill when she was a girl and was chased by the wolves.

THE UNIVERSITY GROUP

The selections here placed together under the head, "The University Group," are taken from the works of authors who have taught or who are now teaching in the University of Wisconsin, and who may, therefore, be said both to have influenced it in its ideals and to have been influenced by it. The work of the editors in this section of the volume has been at once peculiarly pleasant and difficult. It has been pleasant because, under the shadow of Wisconsin's greatest institution of learning, there has come into birth a large body of interesting, instructive, and thoroughly worth-while literary material. The task has been difficult because the line between technical and special material treated in a literary way, and what may be styled pure literature, is very hard to draw. The editors realize thoroughly their fallibility in the making of these selections. So many books have been written, and so many contributions to both popular and technical magazines have been made by teachers in the University, that it is a physical impossibility even to scan them with any sure result of fairness or equity in the selection of real literature from the great mass that has been produced. The most that is claimed for the present selections is that at least they are thoroughly worth-while. No doubt a search covering sufficient time and dealing with a sufficiently large portion of the output of the University would reveal other works and other men worthy of representation in this volume.

There is another consideration that should be mentioned as rendering the task of the present editors peculiarly difficult: All but one of the men whose works are mentioned here are now living. Aside from the impossibility of wholly pleasing any man by a selection from or a criticism of his work, there is the inevitable fact that since most of these men are young, their actual relative standing as producers of literature is constantly and rapidly changing. As one reads the selections in the following pages, he is impressed most of all by the spirit of buoyancy and youth that pervades them. Scarcely a single selection here, even those by the older men, bears the imprint of satiety or completion. All are pulsing with life, hopefulness, buoyancy, and promise.

Again, in a book of this nature, selections must necessarily be brief. It is not possible to give really adequate representation to any one of these men, since the laws of space are inexorable.

Perhaps the one thing common to all sections in this group--the thing which will most readily and profoundly impress even the youngest reader--is a feeling of breadth of experience, wide observation, earnest, keen, and insatiable desire for truth,--in fact, all the opposites of narrowness, prejudice, provincialism. One feels at once that the writers here have read widely and well, that they have a fund of facts gained both from books and at first hand through travel and observation, and that their emotions and their judgments spring from this well of truth as they see it.

PRESIDENT VAN HISE

Charles Richard Van Hise needs no introduction to Wisconsin readers, nor indeed to readers in any part of America. He is a man whom our state may proudly call her own. He was born in Fulton in 1857, took his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering at his own State University in 1879 and his Ph. D. there in 1892, and throughout his whole life, since receiving his first degree, he has been in the faculty of his own Alma Mater. In 1903 he was made its president, which position he now holds.

He is recognized by all as the peer of any man in our country as an authority on geology. His face, through photographs appearing from time to time in public prints, is familiar to us all: while in Madison, and indeed in most cities of the state, his slightly bent figure, with the face peering forward as though seeking some new truth, would be readily recognized by any schoolboy.

When at Madison one of his favorite diversions is riding horseback, and no doubt in many of his geological trips horses have been his most dependable friends.

Needless to say, his interests are wide and varied. Nothing that affects the welfare of his country and its people is outside the field of his attention. Through his membership in many learned societies and his connection with various educational bodies and institutions he wields an influence for the spirit of truth and enlightenment second to almost none in the United States.

We quote here a brief passage from his writings to indicate something of the range of interests the mind and heart of Wisconsin's most active citizen find time in which to interest themselves. While President Van Hise's interests are not primarily literary, any man of fine sensibilities and intelligence, placed as he is, at the center of momentous events, is bound to have a message of vital import; and any such message, clearly and suitably delivered, is literature.

THE FUTURE OF MAN IN AMERICA

By Charles R. Van Hise, published in the World's Work, Vol. XVIII, p. 11718.

... It is clear that the problem of the conservation of our natural resources is an interlocking one. If the forests are conserved in the rough lands and mountains, the streams will have an even flow, their navigability will be easily maintained, they will give a uniform water-power; the erosion of the soil will be lessened; the bottom lands along the stream will not be flooded. If the water-powers are developed, the consumption of coal will be lessened. If the elements which are changed from ore to metals are carefully saved--not being allowed to rust or to be lost--and thus utilized again and again, it will not be necessary to take from the mines so large an amount of ore, and thus less coal and power will be required for their extraction. The conservation of one resource assists in the conservation of all others. We should work with the agents of the earth rather than reverse their work, as we have been doing since American settlement began.

Intimately connected with the conservation of the natural resources is the conservation of humanity itself. Just as we have been reckless in the use of our natural resources, so as a nation have we been reckless of human life. We now know enough in reference to the prevention and cure of communicable diseases, we know enough in reference to improving the conditions under which the industries are carried on, so that, according to Professor Irving Fisher, the average human life might be lengthened by a third.

So far as we permit human beings to be created, it is plainly our duty to conserve them and, so far as possible, produce a happy environment for them. This great problem of the conservation of humanity is mentioned merely to put it in relation with the problems of the conservation of our natural resources, rather than to discuss it.

How long shall this nation endure? Or, more exactly, how long shall human beings occupy this land? It is only within the past two centuries that the lands of the country have been subject to agriculture upon an extensive scale, and the main drafts upon the soil of this country have been within the last century. We should think, not of a hundred years, or of a thousand years, but of hundreds of thousands, or of millions of years of development of the human race. There is no reason, from a geological point of view, why human beings may not live upon this earth for millions of years to come, perhaps many millions of years, and, so far as we are concerned, such periods are practically infinite.

These considerations impose upon us as our most fundamental duty the transmission of the heritage of our natural resources to our descendants as nearly intact as possible. This is an individual responsibility, as well as a state and a national responsibility. There's a strongly developed opinion at the present time that the owners of great wealth, and especially those who control great natural resources, should act as trustees for the nation. This is easy to see; but every man who owns a farm is equally a trustee to the nation for his small property. If at the end of his life the farm goes to his son depleted in richness, he is as truly faithless to his trust as are the great interests, some of which think only of present gain, and wastefully exploit the natural resources of the country. Each in proportion to his own responsibility is a traitor to the nation. At the present time, fortunately, this sense of stewardship is gaining possession of those who control some of the great resources of the nation. As yet, there is scarcely a glimmering of responsibility in the case of the smaller holder of natural resources. But the future of the nation is safe only when small and large holder alike, from the man who owns forty acres of land to the groups of men who control the anthracite of the nation, shall administer their trust primarily for the benefit of the people now living and for succeeding generations rather than for themselves.

I do not hesitate to assert that, from the point of view of our descendants, this question of conservation of our natural resources is more important than any political or social question, indeed, more important than all political or social questions upon the solution of which we are now engaged. Not only is it more important, but it is more pressing, for already our unnecessary losses are irremediable, and the situation is growing steadily worse.

It is necessary that a great campaign of education be inaugurated at once with reference to the conservation of the soil, just as there has been a campaign of education with reference to the conservation of the forests. The task is an enormous one, indeed vastly greater than that carried on with reference to our other resources, because of the fact that the land holdings are so subdivided; but the campaign of education must be carried on, and, as a part of it, the laws must be developed, until we reach the situation where no man dares so to handle his land as to decrease its fertility. If present methods are allowed to continue, it is certain that in the not distant future this country will be able to support only a relatively sparse population. Only by the conservation of our soil, undiminished in its fertility, can we hope to be able to provide for the hundreds of millions of people who, in the near future in the United States, will be demanding food and clothing. The conservation of the soil is the conservation of the basal asset of the nation.

Similarly, the campaign of education in reference to the forests must be continued, and that with reference to the coal and mineral resources inaugurated; for only second in importance to the conservation of the soil is the economic mining and use of coal, the conservation of the forests, and the use of metals with the minimum waste.

DEAN BIRGE

Edward Asahel Birge was born in Troy, New York, in 1851. He received his collegiate training at Williams and Harvard and was made instructor in natural history at the University of Wisconsin in 1875, professor in 1879, and Dean of the College of Letters and Science in 1891, which position he has held down to the present time, except for three years when he served as Acting President.

No one among all the professors is better known to the students of the University of Wisconsin than Dean Birge. His active figure, his firm step, his (now) white hair, which, when the writer went to school, was but iron-gray, his keen eye, have all come to be institutional and fundamental at the University of Wisconsin. No undergraduate who has gone tremblingly before Dean Birge to get his excuse for being late to his first class after the Christmas holidays will need a description of Dean Birge's eye. No one ever thinks of trying to deceive the Dean.

But withal, nothing could be more unfair than to give the notion that keenness is the only quality in that eye. Kindness is there, too, and above all, justice. We who were undergraduates at Madison, always think of Dean Birge as a scholar in his chosen line and as a school administrator. It will be a surprise to many to know of his keen interest in literature. The writer ventures to say that one will look some time before he finds, from the pen of the best-trained specialist in English, a fairer estimate of Milton than the one here given by this biologist.

MILTON

Introductory remarks at the celebration of the tercentenary anniversary of Milton's birth, held at the University of Wisconsin, December 9, 1908.

Perhaps I am wrong in permitting myself to say anything beyond the formal words which belong to my office tonight. I am sure that I have no right to join in the tribute which today the world offers to Milton, beyond that which belongs to every one who did not need to knock the dust from his copy of the poems when this tercentenary anniversary approached. Yet if I had the power to praise, I should attempt the task.

"If my inferior hand or voice could hint Inimitable things"

I would add my words to those of more discriminating praise. But if I speak at all, it must be as one of Milton's readers, not as his critic, still less as his judge; not even as his eulogist. Perhaps I may speak also as a descendant of the men and women who made up that Puritan commonwealth from which he was born and to which at bottom he belonged; as a descendant of men and women, stern, god-fearing, theology-loving, yet very human; mostly commonplace people; not sensitive to art or caring much about it, yet capable of being profoundly moved by the greatest poetry. I may speak in the name of those who for generations kept Milton second only to the Bible in their knowledge and as belonging to a generation which today finds Milton next beyond the Bible in its ignorance. I may represent in some sort that public which long cherished him but which today leaves him to the few lovers of poetry on the one side, and on the other, must have converted him to a post-mortem belief in purgatory by condemning him to a place among the authors assigned for "intensive study" in secondary schools.

I cannot find it in my heart to blame my fellows severely for their present neglect of Milton. When we read the introductory lines of the Aeneid--for our small Latin extends so far as this--and the triumphant final words: "_atque altae moenia Romae_" "burst out into sudden blaze," then in that quick vision of the walls of lofty Rome we catch some hint of that spirit which made the poem the bible of the Roman state. And when we find the introduction to Paradise Lost closing with the promise that the author will "justify the ways of God to man," we feel that temper in the poem which made it at once the holier bible of the Puritan and prevented it from becoming the bible of the English speaking race for all time.

But we of the stock from which Milton came have not all deserted the poet. Some of us still read his verse, though not for the poem so much as for the poetry, which in his hands became the

"golden key That opes the palace of eternity."

We do not find our Milton in his earlier poems; for, charming as they are, they lack that note of strong personality and endless power which our ear first catches in Lycidas:

"Ay me! Whilst thee the shores and sounding seas Wash far away, where'er thy bones are hurled, Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides, Where thou, perhaps, under the whelming tide Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world; Or whether thou to our moist vows denied, Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old, Where the great vision of the guarded Mount Looks toward Namancos and Bayona's hold--"

Here is the true music of Milton's verse; a deep, long-drawn note, a solemn cadence; far from the "wanton heed and giddy cunning" of the music which untwists the chains of harmony, and equally distant from heaven's calm serenity of choral symphonies and "undisturbed song of pure content." This music sounds in the Paradise Lost, less emotional perhaps, but purer and higher; appealing to ear and soul in complex and interwoven harmonies of thought and verse. We hear it still in the Samson; austere, intellectualized; the scheme of music rather than music itself; still resonant though not resounding. We have no skill to compare this music with that of other poets; but this we know, that while its harmonies linger in our ears all other verse rings poor and thin. We hear no voice but Milton's which can bear the praise of his own words: "_praesentem sonat vox ipsa Deum_"--its very note proclaims the present God.

Nor is this all. Milton's verse moves us as does that of no other poet. I do not mean that it moves us to laughter or even to tears. I mean rather that it moves our souls bodily, if such a thing may be. As we read it, we find ourselves committed to a power not so much buoyant as illimitable. The verse bears us aloft and carries us forward; not swiftly, slowly rather; advancing, to our increased happiness, not directly, but with many a pause and turn; yet steadily and powerfully pressing on toward a goal certain and far-seen. We know not whether Milton's poetry accomplished

"Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme";

but at least we must confess for ourselves that it illumines our darkness and raises and supports us as does no other verse.

And so we, who in some far off sense belong to Milton's people, join tonight with you who have the right to praise his name. Yet it may be that in so doing we are thinking rather of ourselves than of any tribute that you or we can bring to him. We know that your commemorative words will renew our knowledge and quicken our hearts. We hope that, hearing them, we may feel the presence of those

"immortal shades Of bright aerial spirits"

who ever attend Milton's verse; perhaps we even hope that our clearer vision may catch some new glimpse of Milton himself--our poet--wearing "the crown that Vertue gives" and sitting

"Amongst the enthroned gods on sainted seats."

RASMUS BJÖRNE ANDERSON

"Rasmus B. Anderson" is a name that has been familiar to all University of Wisconsin students and to all people of Scandinavian parentage throughout the Northwest for at least two score years. This fine old man is a true son of Wisconsin. He was born in Albion, Wisconsin, of Norwegian parents, in 1846. He received an honorary A. B. from the University of Wisconsin in 1885, and the title of L. L. D. from the same institution in 1888. He was professor of Scandinavian languages and literature here from 1875 to 1883, when he resigned to serve as minister to Denmark. He has translated scores of selections from Scandinavian languages into English, and is the editor of almost countless articles of an historical, linguistic, literary, and philosophical nature. Now, at the age of seventy, his friends know him as a kindly, busy man with an active and keen interest in all about him. He is at present serving in an editorial capacity on the boards of different journals and encyclopedias.

The selection here given was one of the earliest that he published. It breathes the spirit of enthusiasm and love for the land of his fathers, but at the same time shows his careful citation of evidence to support his every assertion.

BJARNE HERJULFSON, 986

From "AMERICA, NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS." Chapter X. By Rasmus B. Anderson. Copyright, 1883, by S. C. Griggs & Co.

In the year 986, the same year that he returned from Greenland, the above-named Erik the Red moved from Iceland to Greenland, and among his numerous friends, who accompanied him, was an Icelander by name Herjulf.

Herjulf had a son by name Bjarne, who was a man of enterprise and fond of going abroad, and who possessed a merchant-ship, with which he gathered wealth and reputation. He used to be by turns a year abroad and a year at home with his father. He chanced to be away in Norway when his father moved over to Greenland, and on returning to Iceland he was so much disappointed on hearing of his father's departure with Erik, that he would not unload his ship, but resolved to follow his old custom and take up his abode with his father. "Who will go with me to Greenland?" he said to his men. "We will all go with you," replied the men. "But we have none of us ever been on the Greenland Sea before," said Bjarne. "We mind not that," said the men,--so away they sailed for three days and lost sight of Iceland. Then the wind failed. After that a north wind and fog set in, and they knew not where they were sailing to. This lasted many days, until the sun at length appeared again, so that they could determine the quarters of the sky, and lo! in the horizon they saw, like a blue cloud, the outlines of an unknown land. They approached it. They saw that it was without mountains, was covered with wood, and that there were small hills inland. Bjarne saw that this did not answer to the description of Greenland; he knew he was too far south; so he left the land on the larboard side and sailed northward two days, when they got sight of land again. The men asked Bjarne if this was Greenland; but he said it was not, "For in Greenland," he said, "there are great, snowy mountains; but this land is flat and covered with trees." They did not go ashore, but turning the bow from the land, they kept the sea with a fine breeze from the southwest for three days, when a third land was seen. Still Bjarne would not go ashore, for it was not like what had been reported of Greenland. So they sailed on, driven by a violent southwest wind, and after four days they reached a land which suited the description of Greenland. Bjarne was not deceived, for it was Greenland, and he happened to land close to the place where his father had settled.

It cannot be determined with certainty what parts of the American coast Bjarne saw; but from the circumstances of the voyage, the course of the winds, the direction of the currents, and the presumed distance between each sight of land, there is reason to believe that the first land that Bjarne saw in the year 986 was the present Nantucket, one degree south of Boston; the second Nova Scotia, and the third Newfoundland. Thus Bjarne Herjulfson was the first European whose eyes beheld any part of the present New England.

REUBEN GOLD THWAITES

Reuben Gold Thwaites was born in Massachusetts in 1853. When twenty-three years of age he came to Madison, Wisconsin, to act as editor of the Wisconsin State Journal. Just ten years later he was made secretary and superintendent of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, in which capacity he served until his death in 1913.

All students of history in the University of Wisconsin knew Mr. Thwaites, for no doubt partly through his influence, instructors in history impressed upon the young men and women in their classes the conception of history as being always in the making. To many a student who had always thought of history as being something written in books this new conception came as a great awakening. He urged upon all with whom he came in contact the importance of recording local events, and he had an extraordinarily keen sense of tendencies and activities in his state that were really vital and significant.

The State Historical Library at Madison contains thousands of newspaper clippings, little pamphlets, letters by obscure people, apparently unimportant legal or official documents that were gathered by Reuben Gold Thwaites, and that now form the priceless sources of the history of the state. The services of such a man to his community cannot be reckoned commercially. The state knows itself better, understands its ideals more thoroughly, and furnishes to its students a fund of incontrovertible facts on which to base their study, because it possessed a citizen like Reuben Gold Thwaites.

THE DISCOVERY OF WISCONSIN

From "STORIES OF THE BADGER STATE," pp. 27-32. By Reuben Gold Thwaites. Copyright, 1900, by the author.

Among the many queer stories brought [to Quebec] by these fierce, painted barbarians [the Indians] was one which told of a certain "Tribe of the Sea" dwelling far away on the western banks of the "upper waters," a people who had come out of the West, no man knew whence. In those early days, Europeans still clung to the notion which Columbus had always held, that America was but an eastern projection of Asia. This is the reason that our savages were called Indians, for the discoverers of America thought they had merely reached an outlying portion of India; they had no idea that this was a great and new continent. Governor Champlain, and after him Governor Frontenac, and the great explorer La Salle, all supposed that they could reach India and China, already known to travelers to the east, by persistently going westward. When, therefore, Champlain heard of these strange Men of the Sea, he at once declared they must be the long-sought Chinese. He engaged Nicolet, in whom he had great confidence, to go out and find them, wherever they were, making a treaty of peace with them, and secure their trade.

Upon the first day of July, 1634, Nicolet left Quebec, a passenger in the second of two fleets of canoes containing Indians from the Ottawa valley, who had come down to the white settlements to trade. Among his fellow passengers were three adventurous Jesuit missionaries, who were on their way to the country of the Huron tribe, east of Lake Huron. Leaving the priests at Allumettes Island, he continued up the Ottawa, then crossed over to Lake Nipissing, visited old friends among the Indians there, and descended French Creek, which flows from Lake Nipissing into Georgian Bay, a northeastern arm of Lake Huron. On the shores of the great lake, he engaged seven Hurons to paddle his long birch-bark canoe and guide him to the mysterious "Tribe of the Sea."

Slowly they felt their way along the northern shores of Lake Huron, where the pine forests sweep majestically down to the water's edge, or crown the bold cliffs, while southward the green waters of the inland sea stretch away to the horizon. Storms too severe for their frail craft frequently detained them on the shore, and daily they sought food in the forest. The savage crew, tiring of exercise, and overcome by superstitious fears, would fain have abandoned the voyage; but the strong, energetic master bore down all opposition. At last they reached the outlet of Lake Superior, the forest-girt Strait of St. Mary, and paddled up as far as the falls, the Sault Ste. Marie, as it came to be called by the Jesuit missionaries. Here there was a large village of Algonkins, where the explorer tarried, refreshing his crew and gathering information concerning the "Tribe of the Sea." The explorers do not appear to have visited Lake Superior; but, bolder than before, they set forth to the southwest, and passing gayly through the island-dotted Straits of Mackinac, now one of the world's greatest highways, were soon upon the broad waters of Lake Michigan, of which Nicolet was probably the first white discoverer.

Clinging still to the northern shore, camping in the dense woods at night or when threatened by storm, Nicolet rounded far-fetching Point Detour and landed upon the shores of Bay de Noquet, a northern arm of Green Bay. Another Algonkin tribe dwelt here, with whom the persistent explorer smoked the pipe of peace, and they gave him further news of the people he sought. Next he stopped at the mouth of the Menominee River, now the northeast boundary between Wisconsin and Michigan, where the Menominee tribe lived. Another council was held, more tobacco was smoked, and one of Nicolet's Huron companions was sent forward to notify the Winnebagoes at the mouth of the Fox River that the great white chief was approaching; for the uncouth Winnebagoes were the far-famed "Tribe of the Sea" whom Nicolet had traveled so far to find....

By this time, Nicolet had his doubts about meeting Chinese at Green Bay. As, however, he had brought with him "a grand robe of China damask, all strewn with flowers, and birds of many colors," such as Chinese mandarins are supposed to wear, he put it on; and when he landed on the shore of Fox River, where is now the city of Green Bay, strode forward into the group of waiting, skin-clad savages, discharging the pistols which he held in either hand. Women and children fled in terror to the wigwams; and the warriors fell down and worshipped this Manitou (or spirit) who carried with him thunder and lightning.

"The news of his coming," says the old Jesuit chronicler, "quickly spread to the places round about, and there assembled four or five thousand men. Each of the Chief men made a feast for him, and at one of these banquets they served at least six-score Beavers."...

For various reasons, it was nearly thirty years before another visit was made by white men to Wisconsin. Nicolet himself soon settled down at the new town of Three Rivers, on the shores of the St. Lawrence, between Quebec and Montreal, as the agent and interpreter there of the great fur trade company. He was a very useful man both to the company and to the missionaries; for he had great influence over the Indians, who loved him sincerely, and he always exercised this influence for the good of the colony and of religion. He was drowned in the month of October, 1642, while on his way to release a poor savage prisoner who was being maltreated by Indians in the neighborhood.

FREDERICK JACKSON TURNER

Born in Portage, Wisconsin, in 1861, Frederick J. Turner was graduated from the State University in 1884, and six years later he received his Ph. D. from Johns Hopkins. Meantime he had spent some of the years in teaching in his Alma Mater. He was made full professor of history in 1892, which position he held until 1910, when Harvard University called him.

Few men on "The Hill" were more beloved by the students than "Freddie" Turner. His courses were crowded, and his lectures were exceedingly popular. Perhaps if his students had known that from 1885 to 1888 he served as tutor in rhetoric and oratory at Wisconsin, they would not have wondered so much at the eloquence of his lectures.

But eloquence was not the main feature of his lectures, nor yet the quality he most desired in the recitations of his students. Woe betide the young man who had spent too little time upon the "constitutional period," and who tried to give this argus-eyed instructor the impression of deep and careful study. The bubble was sure to be pricked, and the discomfiture of the ambitious one was, while frequently laughable, always unmistakable. One never knew when he was going to be "quizzed" in "Freddie's" class. But one thing was certain: that was that he would be asked a question, and when that question came it was best, from every point of view, to be able to do good, clear, straight thinking, based on a fund of religiously acquired information. One quality that Professor Turner exacted of himself and others was that assertions must be backed up by evidence. Perhaps that is not the least important reason why the article from which a selection is here made created as profound a change in the general attitude toward American history as any single word on that subject that has ever been spoken.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FRONTIER IN AMERICAN HISTORY

From "THE ANNUAL REPORT OF THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION" for 1893, pp. 199-227. By Professor Frederick J. Turner, then of the University of Wisconsin.

In a recent bulletin of the Superintendent of the Census for 1890 appear these significant words: "Up to and including 1880, the country had a frontier of settlement, but at present the unsettled area has been so broken into by isolated bodies of settlement that there can hardly be said to be a frontier line. In the discussion of its extent, its westward movement, etc., it cannot, therefore, any longer have a place in the census reports." This brief official statement marks the closing of a great historic movement. Up to our own day American history has been in a large degree the history of the colonization of the Great West. The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward, explain American development.

Behind institutions, behind constitutional forms and modifications, lie the vital forces that call these organs into life and shape them to meet changing conditions. The peculiarity of American institutions is the fact that they have been compelled to adapt themselves to the changes of an expanding people--to the changes involved in crossing a continent, in winning a wilderness, and in developing at each area of this progress out of the primitive economical and political conditions of the frontier into the complexity of city life. Said Calhoun in 1817, "We are great, and rapidly--I was about to say fearfully--growing!" So saying, he touched the distinguishing feature of American life. All peoples show development; the germ theory of politics has been sufficiently emphasized. In the case of most nations, however, the development has occurred in a limited area; and if the nation has expanded, it has met other growing peoples whom it has conquered. But in the case of the United States we have a different phenomenon. Limiting our attention to the Atlantic Coast, we have the familiar phenomenon of the evolution of institutions in a limited area, such as the rise of representative government; the differentiation of simple colonial governments into complex organs; the progress from primitive industrial society, without division of labor, up to manufacturing civilization. But we have in addition to this a recurrence of the process of evolution in each western area reached in the process of expansion. Thus American development has exhibited not merely advance along a single line, but a return to primitive conditions on a continually advancing frontier line, and a new development for that area. American social development has been continually beginning over again on the frontier. This perennial rebirth, this fluidity of American life, this expansion westward with its new opportunities, its continuous touch with the simplicity of primitive society, has furnished the forces dominating American character. The true point of view in the history of this nation is not the Atlantic Coast, it is the Great West. Even the slavery struggle, which is made so exclusive an object of attention by writers like Professor von Holst, occupies its important place in American history because of its relation to westward expansion.

In this advance, the frontier is the outer edge of the wave--the meeting point between savagery and civilization. Much has been written about the frontier from the point of view of border warfare and the chase, but as a field for the serious study of the economist and the historian it has been neglected.

The American frontier is sharply distinguished from the European frontier--a fortified boundary line running through dense populations. The most significant thing about the American frontier is, that it lies at the hither edge of free land. In the census reports it is treated as the margin of that settlement which has a density of two or more to the square mile. The term is an elastic one, and for our purposes does not need sharp definition. We shall consider the whole frontier belt, including the Indian country and outer margin of the "settled area," of the census reports. This paper will make no attempt to treat the subject exhaustively; its aim is simply to call attention to the frontier as a fertile field for investigation, and to suggest some of the problems which arise in connection with it....

The stubborn American environment is there with its imperious summons to accept its conditions; the inherited ways of doing things are also there; and yet, in spite of environment, and in spite of custom, each frontier did indeed furnish a new field of opportunity, a gate of escape from the bondage of the past; and freshness, and confidence, and scorn of older society, impatience of its restraints and its ideas, and indifference to its lessons, have accompanied the frontier. What the Mediterranean Sea was to the Greeks, breaking the bond of custom, offering new experiences, calling out new institutions and activities, that, and more, the ever retreating frontier has been to the United States directly, and to the nations of Europe more remotely. And now, four centuries from the discovery of America, at the end of a hundred years of life under the Constitution, the frontier has gone, and with its going has closed the first period of American history.

PAUL SAMUEL REINSCH

Professor Reinsch was born in Milwaukee in 1869. He received his A. B. from the University of Wisconsin in 1892 and his doctorate in 1898. He had the advantage of studying at the University of Berlin and at Rome and Paris. He was assistant professor of political science at his Alma Mater from 1899 to 1901, and full professor from 1901 to 1913, except for two years, 1911 and 1912, when he held the Roosevelt professorship at the Universities of Berlin and Leipzig. Since 1913, he has been Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to China. His present address is the American Legation, Peking, China.

Few men have had the advantages both in study and experience that have come to Dr. Reinsch, and few have met these advantages with keener love for truth and desire for knowledge. He is a member of several learned societies of law and political science, and is the author of many books on these and related subjects. Some of these books have been translated into Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, and German. The selection given here is taken from "Intellectual Currents in the Far East," and well illustrates the fact that deep learning and perfect clearness of expression may well go together in a literary production.

THE NEW EDUCATION OF CHINA

From "INTELLECTUAL AND POLITICAL CURRENTS IN THE FAR EAST."