road, how much should we include for this element of cost which we have called "gray matter"? Brains of this sort, let us remember, can command great rewards and sell at a high price in the open market; and this for no other reason than that they are intrinsically valuable. In our estimate of the original cost of a railway, would it not be fair to add for this factor a sum equal to one-half, say, .of the "physical valuation"? Assuming that, on account of the unique relation of the railways to the public, some sort of governmental regulation is expedient, why should that regulation ignore a value-factor which is recognized in every other business?

Again, should we not count as a part of the original cost a considerable compensation for the inevitable risk involved in any project which builds on a forecast of the future? So great is this risk that, as is well known, more than half the new projects of the wisest men meet with ultimate failure. Strict justice would require, it seems, that we add to the price of the physical factors of any railway another fifty per cent at least for risks accepted by the original investors. I say investors, not promoters; for the two classes must be carefully distinguished. The promoters, I suspect, incurred little risk, if any, and, when their promotions succeeded, received no doubt a large reward for their services; but, whether this reward was large or small, it was another one of the necessary expenses paid by those who supplied the capital, and must, as well as the risk, be regarded as a part of the original cost.

Then, as part of this original cost, should we not reckon also interest during the period of construction and development on the invested capital which yielded as yet no return? Some roads built half a century ago are still in this development period, as is shown by the frequent passing of dividends. The Missouri Pacific, for example, has paid no dividends since 1907.

Thus far we have assumed that the original investors in a given railway are the present owners, and also that the measure of real value is the original cost. If these assumptions were true, a resort to physical valuation would be unjust. Both assumptions, however, are false, but physical valuation appears no less unjust in the light of the true state of the case. The present owners of the railways are the present stockholders, most of whom have bought their stock from time to time at the market price-a price determined chiefly by the earning power, present and prospective, of the property under normal political and industrial conditions; and this, by the way, is what we apprehend to be the true measure of value. At any rate, it represents the value possessed by railway properties for the present owners, and is the value which the Government must recognize in its dealings with the roads, unless it intends to commit robbery. In this connection, to talk about "phys

ical valuation " seems to the writer, who, as a Progressive, shares with the rest of his party the hunger for social righteousness, to be not only irrelevant but immoral.

In view of the prevailing hostility to the railways, which seems to me so unjust and pernicious, I cannot refrain from hinting in conclusion at the inestimable value of the services they are constantly rendering to society. Compare the cost of transportation by rail with that by dray. Yesterday I paid a railway fifty-four cents for carrying several hundred pounds forty miles, and a drayman twenty-five cents (a very moderate charge) for carrying the same things a quarter of a mile. To bring a bed by rail from Boston, a distance of 1,500 miles, it cost me a short time ago the munificent sum of one dollar. How much would it have cost me by dray? The present letter will be conveyed to The Outlook, a distance of 1,000 miles, for two cents. Before the railways came into existence, it cost, as I happen to know, twentyfive cents to send a letter from Troy to New York City. Is it not true that, although we are paying the railways millions, we are actually receiving from them tens of millions in valuable service? E. E. POWELL.

Oxford, Ohio.

COLLEGE ENTRANCE REQUIREMENTS The dissatisfaction with the present college entrance requirements is widespread and increasing; a recent writer urges the schools to throw off the incubus of the present absurd college requirements. The difficulty has perhaps grown naturally, and has come to assume undue dimensions only in recent years. The curricula of the schools have been "enriched " by adding new courses and studies. The colleges have had to meet this demand, but it has been at the expense of the scholars, and therefore of the schools and colleges.

The criticism on all hands is that the graduates of our colleges are superficial. The best students we have are in general the Rhodes scholars, yet the Oxford authorities complain of their superficiality; the business men who employ college graduates make the same complaint. Forty years ago this charge was not common; it is comparatively recent, and, if examined carefully, will be found to be contemporaneous with the increased entrance requirements. During this same period the average age of admission has increased from two to three years.

The only conclusion is that there are too many subjects. The examinations are not too severe nor the requirements too hard, but there are too many of them. No man would take a boy of fourteen into his shop or office, give him eight or ten unrelated subjects and expect him to know them all well in three or four years, as the colleges demand. A boy has so many dif

ferent things to learn that it is impossible for him to do them well. The work is a constant struggle to cover the ground; all has to be given up to this. The boy is hurried from one subject to another; he has no time for thought or to learn to think. A premium is put on tutoring; good teaching, and indeed education, have to be sacrificed.

Formerly there were only three subjects. Harvard has taken a great step in the right direction in requiring only four in its new plan; but this helps only a little, as it requires a certificate that the other studies have all been taken.

The exceptionally bright student is the only 'one who, at seventeen, enters college without conditions, as is shown by the fact that the average age of admission is nineteen. With fewer subjects the bright boy could be helped to do advanced work, and perhaps anticipate some college course; the dull boy could have time to be helped; the average boy could enter college without conditions at seventeen.

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The pressure is still to increase the number of subjects, but that has proved a failure. There should be only four examinations, which should correspond in difficulty to the present final requirements. A boy can learn four subjects and know something about them. Now he knows a very little about a great many subjects; superficiality can be the only result. The colleges recognize this and allow only four or five courses a year, and yet make boys, before they enter college, take five or six different studies.

"The exactitude of what the eye sees will always be more important than its extent; it is certain that the accurate knowledge of a single case is more serviceable to judgment than the survey of a thousand shrouded in mist. In fact, the old saying, non multa, sed multum, proves to be universally true." It would seem unnecessary to write a defense of the value of concentration; but the power of concentration, of fixed and sustained attention, is, as far as possible, destroyed by this multiplicity of subjects. ROLAND J. MULFORD (Head Master.)

Ridgefield School, Ridgefield, Connecticut.

WHY WE LAUGH

In the August 9 number of The Outlook you publish an article by H. Addington Bruce on Why We Laugh." It seems to me, as is so often the case with common questions, that the attempts at an answer have been unduly involved. Laughter is a purely reflex expression; it is almost unconscious in its spontaneity. As Mr. Bruce has said, it is an attribute of childhood; and its appearance in later life is but a return to our early heritage. We all know that laughter is an expression of emotion and closely linked with other such expressions, "laughter and tears," and often its inordinate expression becomes hysterical. In other words, our emotions have been excited, and this is but the reflex

expression-the safety valve to carry off the surplus energy. For whenever our emotions are "touched," there is generated a motive impulse whose intensity is proportionate to the degree of our disturbance. If there be not some expression of that motive impulse in action, there must be a violent effort of repression; this not only consumes energy, but, if often repeated, blunts the perceptions. Therefore laughter and tears are but nature's outlets for our appreciations; they constitute the best way of taking care of the surplus motive impulses that are not expressed otherwise in action.

This explanation easily accounts for the frequency of laughter in children, and its beneficial effects upon the more advanced in life. It explains in no way, however, what we laugh at, as the avenues of our appreciation are individual, and depend upon each one's accumulations of associations.

We laugh because we must-it is necessary for self-protection to relieve the emotional stress. As Mr. Bruce so aptly quotes the common saying, "I just had to laugh or bust." Little Rock, Arkansas.

SCOTT C. RUNNELLS.

A TERRIBLE OFFENSE !

Do you know that, according to the laws and court decisions of the State of Kansas concerning the use of text-books in the public schools of the State, it is an offense, punishable by fine or imprisonment, or both, for any teacher, superintendent, or school officer to allow the children to use in school in his study of reading "Robinson Crusoe," Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," "Arabian Nights," Shakespeare," or any of the great things that have been written in the English language other than the portions that appear in the scraps in our text-books in reading?

The text-books in reading permitted in the State are as follows: Van Amburgh's "First Days in Reading " (Atkinson, Mentzer & Grover, Chicago, publishers); Wooster's First, Second, and Third Readers (Wooster & Co., Chicago, publishers); "Searson-Martin Studies in Reading," Fourth Reader and Fifth Reader (University Publishing Company, Chicago, Illinois); "American Classics " (Houghton Mifflin Company).

This completes the list. What do you think of it as a sum total of literary food that the Kansas child may use during his eight years in the elementary schools? Isn't this crime against our children of sufficient magnitude to deserve the attention of papers of National circulation? I have been a teacher in the State for nine years, but have never seen a word of censure to the State for this act appear in any paper whose opinion has much weight in the Nation. The protests of the school men seem to be useless. They have been made repeatedly.

GEORGE G. PINNEY, Superintendent of City Schools.

McPherson, Kansas.

SAFETY FIRST

An important convention of mining operators, engineers, and surgeons is to be held in Pittsburgh in September to discuss the best way of reducing accidents in mines and quarries. In one year (1911) 3,600 men were killed and 6,331 injured in these industries. The meeting is an outcome of the "Safety First" agitation, already described in The Outlook, and also of the good work done by the United States Bureau of Mines. Mr. H. M. Wilson of that Bureau is quoted as follows:

Mine operators now realize that it is more expensive to restore wrecked mines, more costly to fight damage suits through the courts, and less profitable to pay regulated liability charges or even workmen's compensation, than it is to bear the cost involved in reducing these charges by means of diminishing the number of accidents and the duration of the resulting disability by the adoption of improved safety, rescue, and first-aid methods.

Since 58 per cent of all industrial accidents are shown by statistics to be due to negligence, carelessness, or lack of knowledge of employers or employees, the vital necessity of learning everything possible about the causes and means of preventing these accidents must be evident to every man concerned in mining. To the operators it spells business success or failure; to the miner, life or the physical ability to work and support a family.

FIRING EXPLOSIVES BY WIRELESS

The larger the claim made for an invention the less is one inclined to accept it without full confirmation. When we find it stated in headlines that a new optical discovery is about to revolutionize warfare, we report the allegation but reserve opinion. Here is the story, however, which has, as will be seen, particularity as regards names and circumstances; it is in the form of a press cable despatch from Deauville, France:

The smart little French yacht Lady Henrietta, flying the British flag, and provided with wireless apparatus and antennæ and having Signor Ulivi, the Italian engineer and chemist on board, has been hovering about the Norman coast during the past few days. The yacht contains the invaluable secret of a new invention for exploding at distances varying from 600 to 6,000 yards by wireless infra-red solar spectrum waves, called F-rays by Ulivi, all explosive substances in contact with metal which may be on board of any vessel of war.

Experiments with astoundingly successful results have been made with this invention, which Ulivi predicts will revolutionize modern warfare on land and sea, in the presence of General de Castelnau, assistant chief of the general staff of the French army, Commandant Ferrie, director of the wireless telegraphy station of the Eiffel Tower, and Captain Cloitre, representing the French Minister of Marine. This

technical commission has made reports which are kept a profound state secret, but, according to the highest authority, they conclude with a recommendation urging the French Government to secure the monopoly of the invention.

Roughly speaking, the application consists in finding, by means of a special projector emitting return infra-red rays, the exact distance and exact radio-magnetic capacity of metallic objects. When these have been determined with precision, the Ulivi F-ray is projected and a long-distance wireless explosion ensues with mathematical accuracy.

Experiments made near Villers by Ulivi and the French Government commissioner on board the Lady Henrietta resulted in exploding submarine mines a thousand yards distant with such accuracy that one of two mines only five yards apart was exploded at will, while the second mine remained intact.

HOW OLD IS DENTISTRY?

Tooth-pulling is doubtless as ancient a surgical operation, if so it may be called, as is known to mankind; but tooth-filling has been supposed to be a modern invention. Herodotus, and of course Galen, knew something about dentistry, but apparently not about fillings. But as early as the sixteenth century there is found printed evidence that the use of gold leaves to fill cavities had long been known, if not generally practiced. The assertion that Egyptian mummies have been found with goldfilled teeth is now generally thought to be an error arising out of the fact that the Egyptians often gilded the teeth of mummies for ornament. The question comes up in connectionwith the explorations of Professor Saville, of Columbia, in Ecuador. He found many preAztec skulls perhaps a thousand years old, of a type superior to the Aztecs, and what was especially remarkable was that their teeth showed both gold and cement filling. The New York Sun," in describing this find, says:

The gold-filled teeth struck him as the most unusual feature of his finds. In Mexico he had dug up skulls with teeth filled or ornamented with stone, but he had never before seen gold fillings in a prehistoric skull. The gold was on the edges of the teeth and had been applied from the inside. It showed little on the outside, so the purpose appeared to be less for ornamentation than for utility. Some of the teeth were filled with cement. In all cases, whether the fillings were gold or cement, the borings indicated that a tool had been used that did the work possibly as well as the instruments of the modern dentist. Some of the teeth that apparently had been loosened were held together by gold bands... . . Professor Saville said that the residents, or natives, of that part of Ecuador where he found the skulls and the pottery, just north of the equator, apparently were the only primitive people who understood the art of using jewels and platinum in decorative art.

One of the objects of using gold in the teeth doubtless was ornamentation, but the chief purpose seemed to be to preserve the teeth.

A SAFETY EXHIBIT CAR

A new and interesting feature of railway enterprise and progressiveness has just been introduced by the New York Central lines. At the Grand Central Terminal that company recently opened for inspection its Safety Exhibit Car, which has been put into service in connection with the work of the safety department of the company. The car is intended primarily to use as an instruction car, for the purpose of inculcating the doctrine of "Safety First" in the minds of the 125,000 or more employees of the railway. The interior of the car is finished in white enamel. Along both sides of the car is a shelf about three feet from the floor finished in mahogany, which contains models of every kind of machine used in the many shops on the system. The company requires all machines to be properly guarded so as to prevent workmen becoming caught in the various parts and injured. These models show the proper manner of applying these guards. The models of machines are perfect in detail and show at a glance how to make the machines safe. Along the side walls of the car above the models are several rows of pictures, some of them showing machine guards and various safety appliances. On one side of the car the picture space is devoted entirely to unsafe practices, and there are fully a hundred photographs which explain graphically the common practices of railway employees that cause accidents resulting in injuries to themselves and others. Alongside of a picture showing the improper or unsafe way of doing a certain kind of work is another picture showing the safe or proper way. Employees will be taken through this car by an attendant and instructed in the matter of safeguarding, not only themselves, but the public from injury. One section of the picture gallery is devoted to the trespass question, and there are a number of pictures showing how persons risk their lives needlessly by trespassing on railway property. Above these trespass pictures is a statement calling attention to the fact that more than ten thousand trespassers are killed and injured annually on railways in the United States. Attached to the Exhibit Car there will be a coach which will be used as a lecture car. This car is equipped with a stereopticon, and illustrated lectures on Safety will be given to employees at various points.

THE NEW ALPINE RAILWAY The newest Alpine railway-the Lötschbergjust opened, is described by a correspondent of the "Scotsman" as one of the greatest feats of railway engineering ever accomplished. For

more than six years this colossal work has been going on in the face of almost insuperable difficulties, and, although but forty-eight miles in length, has cost four million pounds and more than forty human lives. The object of the Lötschberg Railway is to provide a direct route to the Simplon, and so to Italy, from western and northwestern Europe, hitherto impossible owing to the vast natural barrier of the Bernese Alps range. It is estimated that in future a re

duction of from one to five hours will be effected on the journey, according to the point of departure. The starting-point of the line, Spiez, on the Lake of Thun, is approached via Delle or Basel and Berne; at Spiez the powerful electric locomotives which have been designed for the Lötschberg service will be substituted for the steam locomotive, and the journey will be continued by way of the Kandersteg Valley and the Lötschberg Tunnel to the Rhone Valley. The line proceeds along a narrow ledge blasted out of the rock one thousand feet above the Rhone, and gradually descends until Brigue, the entrance to the Simplon Tunnel, is reached. For its accomplishment it was necessary to pierce a ten-mile-long tunnel through the great Alpine chain, and the remainder of the line was laid through wildly precipitous country, where every foot of track had to be wrested from nature. Dozens of tunnels have been pierced, and numerous deep ravines bridged. There are twelve smaller tunnels to the north of the great Lötschberg Tunnel, and no fewer than twentyone on the southern section.

AN INGENIOUS LITTLE Help

The scissors, says "Chambers's Journal," have an uncanny knack of wandering even from the tidiest work-basket, and often, when wanted, cannot be found. This is particularly the case in casual sewing operations. With a view to prevent this, and to obviate the necessity of snapping or biting a length of cotton or thread from the reel, a novel little device has been patented. It comprises a small spindle which slips through the hole in the reel, and which at one end is fitted with a tiny blade. It is held in position on the reel by a spring passing from the lower end of the spindle to the blade projection. Thus a cutting edge is fitted to the reel, and remains there until the contents of the reel have been exhausted. All that is necessary, when a sufficient length of thread or cotton has been unwound, is to pass the cotton over the knife-edge, and to give it a slight tight pull, when it is immediately severed at the desired point. This way of dispensing with the scissors is just one of those little refinements which serve to relieve domestic worries. When the reel has been exhausted, the device can be withdrawn in an instant and applied to another reel.

Dr. Grenfell writes from "Down North on the Labrador." "I've had an accident with the Strathcona boiler, which has put her hors de combat for the season. A bad blow for me, and especially for the Labrador folks. I'm going to try to get around in a yawl-but I'm not as young as I was, and the feeling of inefficiency will be very trying after so many years."

The horrors of the Sicilian sulphur mines, which have been described by more than one traveler, are likely to be lessened through the competition of improved American methods. Louisiana and Texas sulphur mines, in which the sulphur is melted underground and pumped to the surface, now supply this country with over 90 per cent of the sulphur consumed, while only a few years ago almost all of our sulphur was imported from Sicily.

The "Interstate Medical Journal," in a leading editorial on the new Poet Laureate, Dr. Bridges, remarks that in none of the poems or plays of this ex physician is there "the faintest adumbration of the influence of the science of medicine on an exceptional mind." This fact may perhaps be due to the effort of a busy man to "sink the shop" in his hours of ease.

Norway, according to the "American-Scandinavian Review," within the last five years has become the fourth seafaring nation in the world, counting by ship tonnage alone; in proportion to its population it ranks first.

Getting books away from libraries and into the hands of readers is now considered of equal importance with accumulating the volumes. The Cleveland Public Library, in pursuing this policy, announces that during the last year its books were distributed for home use through no less than 469 different agencies.

The "West Coast Leader," of Lima, Peru, quoting a Government document, says that the Peruvian law regulating strikes, which has been in force since the beginning of this year, has proved highly satisfactory in eliminating the heretofore frequent conflicts between capital and labor in that country. Can we not learn something along this line from Peru?

The men who carry the dinner-pail certainly ought to have a decent place in which to eat its contents. A recent strike in New York City on the part of 5,000 varnishers was for proper lunch-rooms, so that they should not be compelled to eat their noon meal among offensive smells or on the roofs of buildings.

The United States Government will erect at Caimito, in the Canal Zone, one of the greatest wireless stations in the world, to be known as the Darien Radio Station. It will have three towers, each 600 feet high. It is expected to be able to communicate with San Francisco on the

north and with Valdivia, Chile, 421 miles beyond Valparaiso, on the south, while Buenos Aires will be reached on the east coast of South America.

Warwick Castle, on the river Avon, is reported to be for rent. The temptation to rent to others these romantic but often somewhat uncomfortable abodes of the past frequently prove irresistible to the "poor families " among the nobility. Here is a chance for some wealthy American to see how it feels to live in the house of a "King-maker."

A subscriber writes enthusiastically of the parcel post. She wanted to return a wrap she had borrowed from a friend; the parcel post charged seven cents for the service and five cents for insuring the parcel: total twelve cents. The express company in the old days would have charged her, she says, about seventy-five cents. A large advertisement in the New York "Herald is headed "Ameublement" and signed by the name of one of America's merchant princes. This is the only French word in the advertisement. Was it used as a subtle compliment to the scholarly attainments of the "Herald's" readers-or was it "bad business" for the advertisement writer to use a word that to most Americans would be meaningless until looked up in a French-English dictionary?

Athletics on shipboard, which are usually resorted to in order to beguile the weary hours when the ship is nearing port, ought to be practiced with caution. In a recent "obstacle race on the Cedric a young man was badly injured by striking a steel stanchion. There are so many unfamiliar things on shipboard that races might well be tabooed to the uninitiated.

To dangerous aquatic monsters such as whales, squids, and sharks must now be added the pike. A camper in the Adirondacks was recently drowned by the struggles of a giant pike which he had hooked, and which, after the angler's boat had accidentally upset, pulled the fisherman down as he became entangled in the line.

A Kentucky court recently took up the vexed question of spelling. A school superintendent marked a pupil only 25 per cent on his spelling; the court examiners appointed marked the same pupil's answers with a rating of 55 per cent. The difference arose in this way: The superintendent found only five words out of twenty spelled correctly. The court examiners made allowances for orthography that "came close to it." For instance, "protection" would be marked " 60! 100, "protecshun " 70, and "protekshun The plan would doubtless have had the hearty approval of Andrew Jackson, not to say of Josh Billings.

A Chicago firm of publishers offered a $10,000 prize for the best novel. Anybody, apparently,