may drop the apostrophe and the apology from tho', we may drop the unmeaning and unwarranted ue from catalogue, as we have, in America, discarded the U which earlier writers insinuated into labor and other similar Latin words. At least the genuinely educated portion of the community has already removed the French -me from the Greek program, and is seriously considering the propriety of dropping the Latin syllable -al, added by false analogy to such Greek adjectives as chemic and microscopic.

Farther than such slight changes as these it is not advisable to go until we can, with popular approval, cast off the trammels of an alphabet entirely inadequate to meet the demands of English phonetics and make permanent the present accepted pronunciation by means of a complete phonetic alphabet, each letter of which shall always have a signifi

cance, and always the same significance. The abandonment of the so-called Roman alphabet is not a matter to be decided lightly, since this is one of the main bonds of union between our own and other languages. When the English-speaking nations have become ready for so radical a reform, it may well be asked, is it not worth while, in the selection of characters for the new alphabet, to employ, as far as possible, a single straight line or arc for each letter, instead of a combination of several strokes of the pen, and thus to reduce the time and labor of writing by seventyfive per cent.? In other words, a genuine English spelling reform cannot logically stop much short of the adoption of a unilinear system of writing, analogous to the "simple style of several stenographic alphabets now in vogue.

A. L. BENEDICT, M. D.

F BY the international language, proposed by Doctor Samenhof, the Russian philologist, is meant a universal language, then I say, let the world adopt the English language. For more than a thousand years the English has been in the process of evolution, and to-day it is the most flexible, composite, and beautiful language ever invented by man. It has borrowed liberally, but with discretion, from nearly all languages, living and dead; it contains more synonyms and antonyms than any other one tongue, and more words from which a great literature may be produced.

Of

There was a time- but a few years ago when French was considered the language of polite society the world over. But to-day English is spoken by a far greater number of people than is the Gallic tongue, and the reason is not far to seek. England owns about onefifth of the land area of the globe, exercising a sovereignty over 400,000,000 people. course a large percentage of her subjects do not speak English, but from present indications it is only a question of time when their descendants will. Then we have to reckon in 75,000,000 of Americans, who use the English language, besides other races in the Western Hemisphere and in other parts of the world to whom English is familiar. From this it will be seen that the English language has a good start of all the civilized tongues of the earth, and it must also be remembered that hundreds of thousands of Europeans are conversant with English. In its structural forms it has gained a strength and solidarity second to no other known language. It enabled Shakespeare to prove himself the greatest poet the world has ever seen. No thought or sentiment or casuistry that has been expressed in any other language is there that cannot be as perfectly and as forcibly expressed in English-if the

right man guides the quill. It is true, our translators often lose much of the aroma and many of the verbal nuances of foreign literature in their transcriptions into English. But in our purely creative performances we do not sheepishly shrink from a comparison with the work of our foreign contemporaries.

As a nation the Yankees are not especially given to philology. Polyglots among us are few and far between. But we claim to be an intelligent people, and I think the standard of education among our lower classes will be found to be considerably above that in any other nation. We keep our printing presses going night and day and maintain over 20,000 periodicals. We are a nation of readers, and there are few, if any, inhabited parts of our broad land where publications of one sort and another do not go.

It seems to be easier for the Germans and the Russians to "pick up" English than for us to acquire their languages. I hardly think it is because foreigners are more persistent in their application to study than we are, but rather on account of their aptitude for languages; they are more natural linguists than we. Again, the average American has little sympathy with such a complex and difficult language as the Russian, and feels no practical need of it. On the other hand, for more than one important reason, the Russian sees the advantage of knowing English, and this may be said of all other progressive Europeans. Scores of new words are being incorporated into the English language- by reason of scientific discoveries, and, for the most part, their etymology is valid, derived, as they chiefly are, from the Greek and Latin. It is capable of absorbing foreign words ad infinitum, as well as the majority of foreign idioms.

Why then should not English become the international - the universal language? We know how miserably the attempts to foist Voläpuk into popular vogue failed, and it may be questioned if any artificial language, however ingeniously formulated, would ever win the favor of an enlightened civilization. Such an international language, it cannot be expected, would be adopted by all the savage and barbarous peoples that infest this footstool of the Almighty. Nor would it make any special difference if they didn't adopt it. But it certainly would prove a great international convenience and benefit if a uniform language were practiced among the principal civilized countries and such of their dependencies as are sufficiently advanced to appreciate the advantages of a common speech with their fellow men.

It is natural for every man to love his native language best, but in the broad scheme here suggested, none of us can afford to be narrowminded and bigoted. It is not a question which can be settled off-hand in a single session. From my point of view, there is no substitute for the English language; it embodies the thoughts and inspirations of too many matchless intellects to be crowded aside by any other. With its copious vocabulary and infinite resources, it stands to-day the best chance of winning its way wherever mankind is prepared to choose between it and other civilized tongues. LEON MEAD.

BINGHAMPTON, N. Y.

Education v. Athletics

ALL would agree, observes a writer in an English contemporary, that a certain amount of outdoor exercise is good for girls, but many would doubt whether girls require as much and as violent a form of exercise as their brothers. Walking, dancing, riding, tennis, have always been considered eminently suitable for girls; but what about cricket, hockey, gymnastics on parallel bars, ropes, giant's-strides, etc.? Walk into one of our high schools and you will find that the girls are doing all these. Many of them give up three and four afternoons a week to these sports, besides attending matches all over the place, generally on their bicycles. "Athletics » is becoming the absorbing topic of conversation among schoolgirls, and in a school with which I am acquainted the girls devote the greater part of their time, and almost the whole of their energy, to the subject of hockey-a violent game, which appears to me quite unsuited for girls, except those of the toughest physique.

This absorbing interest in sport seems to me to present a twofold danger. First, I cannot help thinking violent exercise of any sort is very harmful to girls between twelve and twenty, just when they are emerging from childhood to womanhood. Hockey is violent, cricket is violent, whatever the champions of these sports may say, and I have again and again seen girls returning utterly exhausted

after a couple of hours at either of these sports. Boys and girls are utterly different, and what is health to the boy is often harm to the girl.

And not only does a girl's physique suffer from this violent exercise, but her manners and her mind suffer too. In all these violent games there must, perforce, be much pushing and hustling, and that grace, which most of us like to associate with womanhood, will be apt to vanish from the generations to come. If, of course, it were a case of sacrificing grace to health, it might be worth while to sacrifice the former, but I contend it is not. We do not improve our girls' health by these sports; we do spoil much that gives womanhood its charm and attraction. We want written over the doors of all our high schools "Manners make the (wo) man," for to-day manners are sadly to lack.

I am sure that this excessive athleticism injures the mind and hinders its right development. If the girl's thoughts are so absorbed in cricket and hockey, can she be expected to care for her literature, her history, her languages? I am constantly astonished to find how little real work our elder girls are doing, except those who are going to earn their living. They do just what is set; but the idea of reading for themselves is abhorrent to them. They will read the magazines, and especially some of the women's weeklies which are largely devoted to sport; but they scorn the idea of reading Ruskin, George Eliot, etc. A little while ago I tried to arrange for a reading class among girls of from fifteen to seventeen, but the scheme fell through because the majority of the girls went to hockey three times a week, and therefore could not find time to do any private reading. "A healthy mind in a healthy body" is all very well; but what about a healthy body and a vacant mind?

THE Second volume, just issued, of Professor Albert Bushnell Hart's "American History as Told by Contemporaries» (New York: The Macmillan Company), deals with the building of the Republic, the "forgotten half-century » which preceded the outbreak of the Revolution and the period of conflict ending with Union and Independence. It is opened by two admirable chapters on the bibliography of the sources of history, and on the use to be made of those sources, and is closed by a good index. The arrangement is perfectly lucid, the extracts are put before the reader unencumbered with the inevitable notes and explanation of the German or English historian; the selection shows the utmost variety, and mirrors not only the political but the social and personal life of each successive decade. "Wherever a piece could be found which is both characteristic and well written, it has been chosen over a piece which is equally accurate but has less literary merit."

E WONDER if the English, and especially English churchmen, will ever quarrel seriously over any doctrine not involved in the standing controversy between Rome and Geneva. We doubt it; for they are much governed by tradition, and know little of any other theological disputes than those which have been threshed out for the last three hundred years. The ancient controversies, which once shook empires, about the nature of the Godhead, are to them mere battles of words; so completely forgotten, indeed, that hundreds even of the clergy think the creed of the Greek Church and the creed of the Anglican Church, which differ on this theologically vital point, are identical in all but form. Such a quarrel must, however, always be possible, if not probable; and if one ever occurred, it would not surprise us if it had for pivot the doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body. There are the widest conceivable dif, ferences about that doctrine among the laity, and even among the clergy, though they avoid the subject in the pulpit as at present infructuous. The Bishop of London, preaching on St. Luke's Day, October 18, to a very large audience of doctors, is said to have delivered his opinion on the question in no uncertain way. The reports of his sermon in the daily papers are as imperfect from over-condensation, and as contradictory, as the reports of sermons usually are; but if he said anything like the words attributed to him by the "St. James's Gazette "words which are at least consistent and intelligible - Dr. Creighton asserted the old and orthodox belief in the actual rising of the actual body in the most unmistakable style. He not only quoted with approval the opinion of "a great biologist," that the spirit "could" not rise without the body, but declared the responsibilities of doctors greatly increased, because the effect of their work might endure through all eternity.

This, no doubt, was the opinion of the churches for centuries, was the foundation of much religious literature and more religious art, and was treated at the Reformation as beyond the pale of discussion even by sincere Reformers. It is not, however, the opinion of an undivided laity now. They have learned, or think they have learned. from science that

*This thoughtful article, on a topic of the deepest interest to the Christian world, is reprinted from the London "Spectator" of Oct. 29th. It reviews a recent address, delivered by Bishop Mandell Creighton, of London, before an audience largely composed of medical men and students.- ED. S. C.

every particle of the body is changed in the course of years, so that when we speak of the body as rising again it is necessary to ask which body, and that after death the body is resolved into atoms too widely distributed and too greatly changed ever to be reunited. They see that St. Paul, whatever his precise opinion was, preached a change so immense as regards the body as almost to involve a solution of continuity, and they are exceedingly influenced unconsciously by stories of apparitions, as well as by that permanent impatience of their fleshly limitations from which perhaps no imagination is quite free. They have, therefore, after their method, in almost total silence, made a faith, or rather two or three faiths, for themselves. One section reject the notion of a bodily rising altogether, and even refuse to repeat the customary phrase in the creed, holding that it conveys a totally false idea. They think that nothing will rise except "the spirit,» and hesitate to attribute to that either definite form, or habitat, or power except that of living on in happiness for ever. They say that imagination fails to help them much, and that as so little has been revealed, they must be content with an abstract idea until Death, who "holds the keys of all the creeds," introduces them to a place or a condition in which questioning may be silenced by certainty.

That is, we think, the creed of the majority of those layman who give so transcendent a problem any thought at all. Another section fasten on St. Paul's metaphor of the grain of corn, and think that they will have bodies which are not their present bodies, but have grown out of them as corn grows from the grain, without much change save in freedom from disease and decay; while a third section holds that the soul after death accretes to itself a new and glorified body, differing from the existing body in ways which they do not think out, but still with form, and edges, and limitations, and such a resemblance to humanity as will make existence continuous. They do not think, so far as we can gather opinion, that they will become angels in the strict Scriptural sense, because angels existed before they did, but only spiritual beings with the angelic incapacity for suffering and sin. Very few indeed of them hold that their present bodies will ever rise again, that idea being confined to the most orthodox of the clergy, and the latter rather avoiding in the pulpit any close dealing with the subject.

The last of the three sections seem to hold the more reasonable belief, and being fortified

by an unconscious but very strong dislike of their present bodies, partly the result of experience and partly a survival of the ancient Asiatic theory that matter is inherently evil, they hold it with considerable obstinacy. Nevertheless, it is difficult to doubt that if a strong theologian-say Dr. Creighton himself-chose to make the subject a theme for careful discussion, he could make out a much stronger case for the old orthodox doctrine than is generally believed. That argument, for example, which is embodied in the question, "Which body?" is little better than a clever quibble. It would be as reasonable to ask about the belief that the soul survives, “Which soul?” for undoubtedly it suffers as many changes as the body. It grows and it dwindles as the mind does. The possibility of moral degeneracy is admitted on all hands, and few men with experience of life doubt the possibility of "conversion »— that is, of a soul-change-sometimes, though rarely, occurring with extraordinary rapidity. The soul of Newton the captain of slavers and the soul of Newton the hymn writer could not — the foolish theory of hypocrisy being rejected - have been entities without change. However many the changes in the body, the body has a continuous identity recognizable and real, just as much as the soul has, otherwise individuality could not be. There is no reason why if reconstituted after death that identity should not go on, or why the body in the next stage should not be perfected, as it tends to become under certain conditions of hereditary health and clean living even in this world. There must in any case be form of some kind. As Tennyson said—

"Eternal form must still divide

Eternal soul from all beside."

The effects of age may be temporary, and as for the difficulty of the distribution of atoms, if a Creator made the world and even the men of science now admit that there must be something beyond the ultimate atom, or the jump from unconsciousness to consciousness would remain unthinkable - the same Creator can by the operation of a law of which we know nothing rebind the scattered fragments. The orthodox clergy, therefore, their postulates being granted, are not maintaining a wholly illogical faith, and Dr. Creighton has a fair right, as a thinking man, to defend it, though he should admit, we think, that in his eagerness to impress his medical audience he pushed his illustration rather far.

We confess we prefer greatly the theory that the soul accretes a new body, as being more rational, as more in accordance with divine benevolence, and as solving the great difficulty of time. When does the change occur? For ages Christians believed in full faith that those of them who were good enough slept till the great and simultaneous reawakening; but that faith, a very noble one, was originally a result of the belief that Christ would return to reign

visibly almost immediately, and has now, we think, among the laity died almost entirely away. The general expectation is judgment at death, a belief so general that it has affected current language and made it usual to say, "He has gone to his last account.» If that belief is justified, the resurrection of the actual body, the body that can be affected by medical care, is impossible, for the body in myriads of cases is here traceable, and not even yet distributed. On the Christian theory the mummies and the petrified dead had souls too. There is no reason, of course, why the soul should not wait, if that is the will of God, its animation suspended for ages, as it seems in the case of some injuries to the body to be suspended for hours; but there is for the Christian direct evidence against that theory. For him an utterance by the Lord himself is final, even as against St. Paul, and one of the most impressive incidents of the crucifixion is the statement to the penitent thief: "This night thou shalt be with me in Paradise.» Grant that Paradise is some intermediate stage, and still the pardoned man was not to sleep but to be conscious; that is, to live. What does Dr. Creighton, who believes it, as we do, understand by that narrative if it does not mean that the soul of the klepht accreted to itself a new-it may, of course, have been a temporary-individuality? His body, the body susceptible of medical treatment, clearly remained behind. Does the Bishop think that his fate was absolutely exceptional, as that of Christ himself clearly was, for he had a body after his death, yet vanished; or doubt that it was recorded in order to let one little gleam of light into the deepest and most oppressive of mysteries? We cannot think so, though doubtless the whole subject is enveloped in a cloud so completely beyond penetration by thought that it is like the cloud between us and the next five minutes of which Sir Arthur Helps once complained; it suggests the intentional interposition of an impenetrable veil.

seems

"Of all forms of insincerity," says the “Christian Register of Boston, "pulpit insincerity the worst, because it postures and mouths in a holy place. Dead formalism has so portentous a hold on our time that nothing short of passionate sincerity, truth, and conviction, lived and believed in the profoundest manner, can break up the stony surface. The come-outers from these correct, often beautiful, but dead places, are those who have felt the arrow of genuineness piercing their souls. Even if it takes the form of an arrow of doubt that rankles and aches and causes intense misery, bringing even the blackness of darkness, and at moments despair, it is better than living in the most beautiful crypt, among old bones; for this pain is a token of struggling life, the earnest of breaking day. So may our preachers preach that our hearts shall burn within us.»

A

STROPHYSICS, or the "New Astronomy," as it is sometimes called, is a distinct department of astronomy in which investigation is conducted mainly with the spectroscope. It deals with the chemistry and physics of the heavenly bodies — their composition, temperature, etc.,—as revealed by peculiarities in the lignt which they send to us. It seeks to discover, not merely what these bodies are and their present condition, but also what they have been and will be, what changes are taking place in them, and in what relation they stand to one another, on the assumption that they are linked together by the bond of a common nature and a common destiny. In a word, the New Astronomy aims to recover, as far as may be done by human intelligence, the story of the stars.

Let us take a stroll together through this new field of astronomical inquiry and see how the work progresses - what discoveries have been made already and in what direction the astronomers are now pushing their investigations.

It

But first, a word or two about the instrument with which the work is done. Surprising as is the performance of the spectroscope, the instrument itself is one of the simplest. is essentially only a glass prism. Everyone knows that when an object is looked at through a prism it is seen fringed with rainbow colors. Try the effect of looking through a prism at a bright line, say a white thread of cotton, strongly illuminated, or, better still, a crack in a window shutter, taking care to hold the prism lengthwise with the line. What do we see? No longer a white line, but a broad stripe of colors, which, were it curved instead of being straight, would represent perfectly the rainbow. One edge is quite sharply defined and is of a deep red color. The other edge is violet and shades away into imperceptibility. Between are the other colors with which we are familiar in the rainbow-orange, yellow, green, and blue.

It will be noticed, too, that the position of the line has been changed by the action of the prism; we see it in a new direction. Here, in this shift of position, is to be found the secret of the remarkable transformation which has taken place. White light is composite; it is a mixture of these rainbow colors. This white line may be conceived to be made up of innumerable colored lines, superposed one upon another. All that the prism has done has been to

separate these lines. It has shifted the position of them all, but not all to the same extent, and as a result we now see them arranged side by side, though so close to one another as not to be separately distinguishable, forming this colored band - this "spectrum," as it is called - as a piece of shading may be done with fine parallel pencil lines.

One who will actually make this experiment - a three-faced chandelier pendant will do for the prism, if nothing better is at hand- will gain a far more vivid idea of what the spectroscope is than can be conveyed in whole paragraphs of description. In the spectroscope the part here performed by a bright crack is performed by a narrow "slit," which is illuminated with the light to be analyzed; and for viewing this slit through the prism a small telescope is used. With this arrangement, instead of our long stripe of colors we see only a short section of such a stripe, and what we have called the breadth of the spectrum-the distance from the red to the violet edge-now becomes its length. By using more than one prism the dispersion of the colors, and consequently the length of the spectrum, may be increased to any desired extent.

When light from different sources is thus examined with a prism, it is found that the spectrum has not always the same appearance. Of the points of difference, three are especially important:

First, when a solid or liquid or densely gaseous body is hot enough to be luminous, it gives what is called a "continuous» spectrum, that is, such a spectrum as we ordinarily see, containing all the rainbow colors from red to violet, with no gaps or unilluminated places in it.

Second, when an ordinary gas or a metal reduced by heat to the gaseous state is giving off light, its spectrum consists wholly of a greater or less number of bright lines, and these lines are different for different substances. Thus, the spectrum of sodium consists of a close pair of orange-yellow lines; that of hydrogen, of a dozen or more lines, of which the principal are a red, a green, a blue, and a violet line; while the spectrum of iron vapor, the most complex of all the spectra, consists of several hundred lines of different colors. It hardly need be added, after what was said above, that these "lines" are really so many images of the illuminated slit.

Third, when the light of a glowing solid or