in foreign travel, geography and natural history, is," says the St. Louis Post-Despatch, "now in operation throughout the entire United States, and particularly in the West and Southwest. The instructors are the 15,000 sailors on Uncle Sam's peace cruise around the world and the students are their relatives and friends, totaling 200,000 to a quarter of a million souls. The text-books are the shoals of entertaining and instructive letters from the fleet which are flooding the whole country with every mail, with throngs of picture post-cards as graphic illustrations. From Honolulu, Auckland, New Zealand and Sydney, Australia, tons of letters are now on their way to the loved ones at home, bearing vivid lessons in the civilization of the Pacific islands and the antipodes. All over the country forgotten text-books on geography are being resurrected from dusty chests, so that mothers, sisters and sweethearts may chart each day the course pursued by the fleet. Book-stores report a largely increased sale of maps, globes and charts, due to an awakened interest in the remote sections of the earth. To the hundred or so families in St. Louis which have relatives with the fleet have come voluminous and thrilling letters, making them more familiar with Trinidad than they are with Porto Rico, and better acquainted with Magdalena Bay than they are with Charleston harbor. Such letters as these, spreading information broadcast in the land, are proving a vast engine against provincialism, ignorance and narrowness, and affording a cosmopolitan education to multitudes."
(878)
EDUCATION, HIGHER
A good illustration of the monetary value
of higher education in chemistry and mining
is seen when one compares Germany and
England. Both countries have the same kind
of iron ore and the same coal supply. England
has the advantage of having her coal
nearer the iron fields. In 1880 England
mined and produced 8,000,000 tons of pig-iron
per year, while Germany's product was
only 3,000,000. Since that time Germany has
supported handsomely her great technical
universities and sent out each year into her
industries a stream of highly-trained experts,
with the result that in 1907, while England's
production had risen from 8,000,000 to only
9,000,000 tons per year, Germany's had risen
from 3,000,000 to 13,000,000. It is more significant
still that from 1900 to 1908 German
iron brought on the average nearly $19 per
ton, while English iron brought only $13 per
ton, a difference of nearly 50 per cent in
favor of the iron made by the better-educated
German producer. This one result of these
great German technical institutions would
alone add $190,000,000 per year to German
wealth if the iron were sold as raw pig-iron.
As a matter of fact, a large part of
this iron is made up into all sorts of manufactured
products, made possible by their
high technical education, and these products
are exported and sold at many times the
price of the raw pig-iron—New York Evening Post.
(879)
EDUCATION NOT VICARIOUS
William has been to school for over a
year, and his teacher says to him one day:
"Now, William, I am afraid your father will
think that I am not doing well by you; you
must write a composition—you must send
your father a good composition to show
what you are doing." Well, William never
did write a composition, and he does not
know how. "Oh, write about something that
you do know about—write about your
father's farm," and so, being goaded to his
task, William says: "A cow is a useful animal.
A cow has four legs and two horns.
A cow gives good milk. I love good milk.—William
Bradshaw." The master looks over
his shoulder and says: "Pooh! your father
will think you are a cow. Here, give me that
composition, I'll fix it." So he takes it home
and fixes it. Here it reads: "When the sun
casts off the dusky garments of the night,
and appearing o'er the orient hills, sips the
dew-drops pendant from every leaf, the milk-*maid
goes afield, chanting her matin song,"
and so on, and so on. Now, I say that,
rhetorically, the master's composition was
unspeakably better than William's; but as
a part of William's education, his poor,
scrawly lines are unspeakably better than
the one that has been "fixt" for him.—Henry
Ward Beecher.
(880)
Education of Indians—See Indians, American.
Education, Self—See Reading by Schedule.
EDUCATION TO BE PRIZED
Wesley himself, however, had a scholar's
hate of ignorance, and he toiled with almost
amusing diligence to educate his helpers.
He insisted that they should be readers, and
scourged them with a very sharp whip if he
