SCHOOL SEATS.

the under surface of the thighs resting upon the front of the seat. If the body inclines backward, there must be some point of support behind the tuberosities, and this is found in the coccyx. If, however, the body leans either forward or backward, then the weight must be supported by complicated muscular action unless some additional means of support is furnished. The chair back gives this in the backward position. In the forward position the body drops forward, according to Fehrner, by a series of jerks until the weight is caught by the elbows resting upon the desk. In the forward position there is a decided tendency to vicious attitudes, the tendency being to hang the body from the shoulders rather than let the arms hanging from the shoulders rest easily upon the desk. In the prevention of bad attitudes in the forward position the size of the chair seat, the "difference," the "distance," and the desk slope are of considerable importance, as well as the chair back.

In maintaining correct attitudes in the backward position the chair back is of the utmost importance. As recognized by the Vienna Commission, there are three

Faulty attitude at school.

Ill-fitting desk and stool.

The first is the low pelvic support, the second the lumbar,
These, of course, may be combined.

the third the dorsal.
Meyer favored the pelvic support because by fixing the base of support for the
whole spine it favored an upright position. He considered the last vertebra the
most advantageous point of support. Though regarded by him as unnecessary
there may be added a dorsal continuation of his back support, short and at the
same time inclined very sharply backward. Cohn and Hermann agree essentially
with Meyer. Meyer objected very strongly to any high straight back because it
forced the child to slide forward on the seat.

Through the work of Lorenz and Schenck the reclining seat back is now generally used with an inclination averaging about 10 degrees. Both of these authors advocate writing in the reclining position, Lorenz at first advocating a desk slope rather more steep than experience has shown to be practicable. Lorenz and Meyer insist much more strongly than Schenck on the necessity of having a firm lumbar support. Many seats have been constructed with a lumbar support alone, having in view as the main object the maintenance of the normal lumbar curve.

One

back deserving particular mention is that of Holscher, in which two supporting pads, a transverse lumbar and a perpendicular dorsal, are placed upon an upright rod, the whole inclined backward and adjustable for height.

In spite of all the work which has been done in regard to the chair backs they still remain the weakest point in even the best of the modern school furniture built in this country. It is evident that children with strong backs can get on with no support, especially if the sitting hours are properly regulated, but weak muscles are not uncommon among school children, and the best possible support should be furnished. Such support is given by a chair in which faulty positions would be less comfortable than correct ones. Children require a change of position as a relief, and it is desirable that such a change be furnished without tempting the child to attitudes in which the back is less favorably supported.

If children seated, but tired of sitting, are watched, it will be noticed that they either lean upon the desk or slide down upon the chair, to take as far as possible a reclining position, to relieve the downward pressure upon the pelvis and the strain upon the lumbar ligaments and fascia, or by twisting the trunk and sitting to one side or the other, relieving one set of muscles temporarily at the expense of a strain of the others. The photographs taken by Scudder in the public schools show admirably the faulty positions assumed as a result of fatigue and improper seating. Although these positions may be assumed without harm for a short time, yet if constantly taken, a habit is developed dangerous in growing children.

The danger from leaning upon the desk is minimized by a proper construction, properly adjusted height and slope of desk, which with a sufficiently narrow seat will diminish the tendency to a twisted position of the trunk, particularly if the height of the seat is properly regulated. Here also the general introduction of vertical script has been of marked benefit.

The tendency to slip down in the chair and to assume an inclined position is but imperfectly met by foot rests and by hollowing the seat so that the buttocks do not readily slip forward. The tired child will instinctively attempt to assume an inclined position as a relief. This should be made possible as far as practicable without depriving the child of the support that is desired in the lumbar region.

A series of back tracings in various sitting positions shows the great change occurring in the lumbar curves, and the need of firm lumbar support. Whether the child slides forward on the seat in a reclining position, or leans forward on the desk, or simply doubles up and holds the book in his lap, the normal lumbar concavity is replaced by a convexity. When the child slides forward and then leans back, the lower lumbar convexity is less marked, because in this position the pelvis becomes fixed when the coccyx touches the seat, but at the same time the head is carried forward by an increased upper dorsal convexity. Leaning forward on the desk diminishes the normal dorsal convexity, although the lumbar convexity is as marked as in other bad positions. It is essential for a suitable school chair that it should furnish support in the lumbar region; that it should

not press the shoulders forward, and that a change from a vertical to an inclined position be possible without a loss of lumbar support.

With a view to allowing a change from an upright to a reclining position, Miller has constructed a chair on entirely new lines. The chair of Hippauf, already mentioned, had the seat attached to the base by links, parallel and of equal length. Miller substituted iron castings for the wooden links, made the front one much longer than the rear one, and placed them at such an angle that they diverge several inches at the top. Thus this chair gives what no other chair has ever given the ability to move forward into an upright and well-supported position for writing and the ability to slide away from the desk a few inches into a well-supported reclining position for reading.

The back of this chair, which is at slightly more than a right angle with the seat, carries two transverse supports, a lumbar and a dorsal. Each is adjustable for height. The former can be moved for

ward and back as well.

These adjustments in the back are a great gain over the ordinary chair back. Another marked improvement is seen in the modern spring-back typewriter's chair, having a back support adjustable for height, and at an adjustable angle with the seat. The latter mechanism is in some ways more satisfactory than the back of the Miller chair, which, however, has the advantage of a forward and back adjustment of the lumbar support.

By combining the seat and castings of the Miller chair with the spring back, and by replacing the two adjustable pads of the Miller chair and the single pad of the typewriter's chair with a combined dorsal and lumbar pad, swinging like a mirror with the long arm uppermost, the advantages of each are secured. In such a combination chair there are secured four automatic changes, by far the most important being that from the upright to the reclining position; second, that in the distance from the desk; third, that in the angle between the body and thighs; and, fourth, that in the back supports to conform to changes or individual variations in the curves of the spine.

Diagram of modified Miller chair, allowing change of position without loss of back support.

There are other fixed adjustments, one of importance being that for seat height, and others being for height and angle and strength of spring of back supports. In ordinary use all of these adjustments might not prove necessary, although those least simple are the ones in actual use in the very popular typewriter's chair.

In the combination proposed there are secured automatic changes in distance from the desk and in the position of the body as a whole. There are also possible automatic changes in the back supports. At the same time the lumbar spine always receives firm and the dorsal spine sufficient support, no matter what the occupation of the scholar. The fact is recognized that improper attitudes result from fatigue, and that fatigue must always follow any attitude, no matter how satisfactory in itself, which is long maintained without change.

XIX.-ADDRESSES BY RIGHT REV. JOHN LANCASTER SPALDING, BISHOP OF PEORIA.

THE AMERICAN PATRIOT.1

Love of country, like all love, springs from a desire for life, for wider and richer life. Life is possible only through communion with what nourishes it, with what is not itself. We see ourselves in the image reflected from the world on which we look, as by a mirror. We are what we are by virtue of the thousand influences which have acted upon us-our minds have been fashioned and colored by sun and moon and stars; by the vestures with which earth clothes herself as the seasons change; by rivers, oceans, and mountains; by books we have read; by work we have done; by games we have played; by the good and the evil which have befallen us; by the men and women we have known, admired and loved, or feared and hated. All that we have seen, felt, suffered, and done has helped to make us what we are. For good and for ill we are bound to the universe, and apart from it we can neither know nor love nor enjoy. Stars whose light no human eye has beheld help to hold us where we are; grasses and trees that flourished before man ever trod the earth form the soil by which we are fed, the coal by which we are warmed and ministered to in a hundred ways. Nothing exists or lives in isolation, and as insight increases the perception that all things are in union and intercommunion with one another grows clearer. It is only in the lowest stage of thought that objects seem to stand out in separateness, apart from their relations. When we look a little deeper we see that certain relations at least enter as essential elements into all ideas of the objective world, and that all things are interdependent, are a system of forces moving and acting in unison. When we look still more profoundly we perceive within and beyond the world of relative things the independent being who is life and mind, the absolute and eternal, creative energy, God, in whom and by whom the universe exists, who is Himself self-determined and selfactive.

Hence the radical impulse in the craving for richer and wider life is a godward impulse. What we really long for, whether consciously or not, is divine life, immortal life, and we need no other proof of this than the unsatisfactoriness of all, even the highest achievement. Nothing once attained corresponds to the dream which lured us to the pursuit, whether it be wealth or power or fame or pleasure. When we seek ourselves through all the mazes of matter, we may end weary and satiated, but not satisfied. God alone is the infinite other whom we need to fill and complete our lives. Hence religion is and has been the inexhaustible fountainhead of self-devotion-of the self-devotion of patriots and heroes, of saints and artists, of wives and mothers; for whoever loves truth or justice or beauty or goodness with a surpassing love, with a love which endures all things, braves all things, renounces all things, if only it may attain its end, can not but be inspired, strengthened, and upheld by an enthusiasm which must be called religious. By such men barbarous tribes have been led to higher planes, States have been founded, just laws decreed, tyrants overthrown, and the arts and sciences created. For this reason epochs of religious earnestness are epochs of advancing life; epochs of religious skepticism and indifference, epochs of decadence. There may still be, indeed, a gloss, a glitter, a polish, a material prosperity by which the frivolous and thoughtless are misled; but the power of heart and hope, whereby man lives and is strong, is failing. Will is enfeebled, character is undermined, and there is a general falling away in thought, in language, in manners, in conduct, even though it be so gradual as to be imperceptible to the careless eye.

1 An address delivered at the Creve Coeur Club banquet, in Peoria, February 22, 1899.

LOVE OF TRUTH AND JUSTICE.

There is a higher love than love of country-the love of truth, the love of justice, the love of righteousness; and he alone is a patriot who is willing to suffer obloquy and the loss of money and friends rather than betray the cause of truth, justice, and righteousness, for only by being faithful to this can he rightly serve his country. Moral causes govern the standing and the falling of States as of individuals, and conquering armies move forward in vain; in vain the fleeting fabric of trade is spread if a moral taint within slowly molder all. The national life is at fault if it be not in harmony with the eternal principles on which all right human life rests. The greatest and the noblest men, when they meet, rise into regions where all merely national distinctions are forgotten and transcended. In studying the works of a philosopher, a poet, or a man of science we give little heed to what country he was born and lived in, so eager are we to learn the truth and beauty he reveals-truth and beauty which are of no country, which are wide and all-embracing as the universe. In the presence of heroic virtue, also, the national limitations disappear, that the god-like man who belongs to all countries and ages may stand forth in his proper light. A man supremely endowed narrows his mind when he is less than universally human. What he says and does should make laws for all-those diviner laws which have their sanction in the common sense which makes the whole world akin. Patriotism as understood by the ancients is but a partial virtue. When it is most intense, it is most narrow and intolerant. In Jerusalem, in Athens, in Rome, the city was the fatherland. It was the thought of Zion and of "Siloa's brook that flowed fast by the oracle of God," of the Acropolis, with its marvelous setting in the midst of the Attic plain, of the world mother looking from her Seven Hills on the Tiber's tawny wave that made the exiles waste away with repinings for home, and their passionate devotion to their country was rarely separable from a hatred of the foreign nature. Whoever was not a citizen was an enemy or a slave. The captive foe was treated with pitiless cruelty and the slave had no rights. We are separated from these ancient patriots less by the long lapse of time which has intervened than by the difference of spirit in which we look upon and love our country. For us the man is more than the citizen, humanity more sacred than nationality. To lead a man's life, one must live for some one or something other than self. As we can see ourselves only in what is other, so we can find and love ourselves only in what is other than ourselves. To escape from the starved condition of the isolated, the individual is impelled to identify himself with larger unities-with the family, with the State, with mankind, with God. Now, for the ancients the State was the ultimate unity in which a man could find and feel himself; hence their aims and sympathies were partial and narrow. Their patriotism was more intense, but it was less rational, less.moral, and therefore less enduring and less beneficent than ours. It was not possible for them to identify themselves with the race, to recognize that all men are made of one blood, and that whenever one suffers injustice wrong is done to all. But for us nationality has ceased to be the limit of individual sympathy, and the oppression of peoples, however remote, often affects us as though we ourselves had been injured, while noble words and heroic deeds, wherever and by whomever spoken or done, fill us with enthusiasm and gratitude. Many causes, of which the Christian religion is the deepest and most far-reaching, have led to the wider views and more generous appreciativeness of modern men. In looking to the one heavenly Father they are drawn together and held by ties, consecrated by faith, and approved by reason. Science, which deals with laws that are universal, that act alike upon the farthest star and the grain of sand at our feet, on the race as on individuals, promotes this catholicity of feeling and interest. Our machinery, too, in bringing the ends of the world together, facili