no American was competent to undertake what he has successfully accomplished; and, later, dwells at length upon his improvements in dynamo construction in the matter of revolving fields. The importance of the device of rotating the fields instead of the armature in the situation he was dealing with was great, but, as that was the form of the first alternating dynamo ever constructed (in 1833), the novelty of the mere principle, which is what he refers to, is not greatly in evidence, nor, we may add, is the inventive faculty.
In leaving the non-inventive-humorous proposition he says: "Invention and humor require a gift of imagination, the same gift that shows itself in poetry and letters, in music, painting, and sculpture; and in no one of these directions has this gift of imagination been found to predominate among Americans." Letting the last sentence pass, we may observe that it would be as pertinent to deny to the ancient Greeks the possession of any one of the qualities last named because (what will probably be admitted) the inventive talent did not predominate among them.
"They like giving big names to things in America," says our scientist. "A pond is a lake, and a hill is a mountain; they never speak of the sea, it must be called the ocean; a meeting is a convention, a dictionary is a 'speller and a definer,' a town is a city, a chairman is a president, and so on." If I am not mistaken. Max O'Rell has told us much the same thing, and we ought therefore to take it to heart. O'Rell has wonderful insight and an unfailing impartiality, which Prof. Forbes lacks. Take, for instance, the cases the latter cites in support of his proposition. How false some of them are, and how purely local most of the rest! Then, to take one of his instances, it would seem as though Americans were not exceeding their rights in using the word "city" in the nationally defined technical sense of a place of over such and such a population. The method possesses indisputable advantages over the British plan, by which, we understand, no place without a cathedral can be called a city. The latter system of nomenclature has much to recommend it on the ground of mediæval simplicity, but results in the omission of several places of great size and importance from the list of English cities.
We are informed that in this country "the average man is not a good specimen. He is apt to be a most awful 'bounder,' has no taste, and does not know the meaning of the word 'repose.'" We must waive comment on the first accusation on the ground of insufficient information as to what a bounder is. As to the rest, we might suggest to Prof. Forbes that one may possess all the repose that ever marked the caste of Vere de Vere, when experimenting with bons mots on railway conductors, and yet be sadly wanting, both in that quality and in the good taste he refers to, in his liter-
