like to know the places of residence, former training, home conditions, and certain other things about the students who made many of the blunders cited by him, before I should feel competent to form an opinion as to the amount of good they derived from a college education. There are some students who improve to a wonderful degree during their years in college, but who are so constituted mentally that no amount of training would ever enable them to write very creditable English.

Again, are penmanship, spelling, and grammar in any case infallible criteria of a man's ability? Truly, they are the most common tests which we apply; but the application must be made with discretion. More than one great author has written illegibly, indeed wretchedly, compared with the specimen of handwriting reproduced in Mr. Bok's article. I happen to have in my possession the manuscript of a public lecture delivered from more than one platform by the editor of a State paper once well known for the excellence of its editorial columns; but I have never been able to decipher more than a small percentage of the manuscript, so badly is it written. Publishers tell interesting stories of the many words misspelled in the manuscripts of widely known authors; and most of us can cite instances in which the English language has been grossly abused by men who certainly knew better than they wrote. One might paraphrase Mr. Bok and say :

Just try to get the thought in this sentence: While thus inveighing against force, Luther pointed to his own example: he had done nothing but to speak, preach, and write, yet that, even while I slumbered or drank Wittenberg beer with my Philip (Melanchthon) or with Armsdorf, has done more to weaken the Papacy than was ever accomplished by prince or emperor"!

Or this:

It proved in the end a phantom that Frederick William was chasing; the last of the PfalzNeuburgers outlived himself, etc.

Or how is this for a complete sentence: In itself no mean advantage.

If an educated man can perpetrate the following sentence, of what use is education?

Before leaving France he had promised the lady he loved best-not his wife; she lay at the moment at the point of death-never to turn his back to the enemy; through all his fighting he wore her token upon his sleeve.

All of the above quotations are taken from the best short history of Germany published in English. Shall we agree that the author

of those two intensely interesting volumes is a disgrace to his early education because he made such slips in grammar?

What shall we say of the author of this sentence?

Taking, then, his girdle and his cloak, Arbaces left his house, supporting his steps, which were still somewhat feeble (though hope and vengeance had conspired greatly with his own medical science, which was profound, to restore his natural strength), by his long staff: Arbaces took his way to the villa of Diomed.

Can Mr. Bok match that from his collection of choice bits of senior English? Still, one hesitates to consider Lord Lytton a disgrace to his college.

Shall we not rather convict our authors of carelessness instead of ignorance? And if learned men, writing expressly for publication, make careless mistakes, may not college seniors replying to a circular letter make similar mistakes without proving that their college training has been a waste of time and money? A college education is a complex thing; far too complex and far-reaching to admit of adequate evaluation on the basis of poorly written replies to a circular letter. Such replies are indeed but straws, and perhaps they do not even show the direction in which the wind blows. Perhaps they are moved by little backward eddies which are unrelated to the general onward movement of the great body of the atmosphere.

But whether due to carelessness or to fundamental ignorance, and doubtless both are involved, the evils exaggerated by Mr. Bok exist and should be remedied. It may be doubted, however, whether it is the function of the college to teach boys and girls how to spell correctly and write legibly and grammatically. It is possible for a student to pass through elementary schools, high school, academy, college, and graduate professional school, and still write illegibly and make mistakes in grammar and spelling. Which one of the educational agencies shall we blame for this student's deficiencies? Why single out the college? Why not lay the blame on the School of Medicine or the School of Mines? Or shall we place it on the elementary and high schools, where spelling, writing, and grammar are actually taught, and where the blame would seem more logically to lie? I have no sufficient body of facts to prove the case, but I nevertheless have the fear, shared by many others, that the high school graduate of to-day does not spell as well nor write as legibly and grammatically as did his prede

cessor of a few decades ago. And I believe this is due in large part to the introduction into the schools of subjects which may be more interesting and more like play than the older studies, but which unduly shorten the time available for the old-fashioned but fundamentally important subjects.

I would not have the college shirk its responsibility, however. It can materially improve the situation by refusing to admit any young man or young woman who cannot spell correctly and write legibly and grammatically. It is not the function of the college to teach these elementary subjects, and it ought not to burden itself with students who are not already at least reasonably proficient in them. Theoretically, some colleges require such proficiency of the candidate for admission; but, as a matter of fact, some of those same colleges admit students who are woefully illiterate. To guard against a relapse into bad habits, college professors might well insist that all reports and examination papers be legibly written in good Eng

lish, refusing to accept any compositions which do not meet those requirements. Some professors do this, but others struggle to decipher illegible writing or involved expressions, in order to be sure that the answer to a given question is correctly graded. Perhaps some arrangement might be perfected whereby the Department of English would pass upon selected specimens of the student's daily work, without the student's having previous knowledge of what productions would be thus selected. A rigidly enforced rule denying the baccalaureate degree to any student whose daily use of the English language fell short of a reasonably high standard would further safeguard the reputation of the degree, and inspire the students to a more thorough mastery of our mother tongue. Then the high service rendered by the college would be less obscured by the shortcomings of some of her sons and daughters, and the critics of the college might get a deeper insight into the many real benefits conferred by a college education.

W

HEN I first entered "Professor
Thelma's" parlor for a " reading,"

I had not the remotest thought of going into the business myself. It amuses me when I think of it, but I must honestly confess that I am more ashamed of having been his client for fifteen minutes than I am of having been his apprentice and assistant for nearly a year. Probably I am not different from most other people in that I find it harder to admit to a little credulity than to plain humbug. Not that I ever had a very robust faith in mediums or clairvoyants and other purveyors of occult knowledge, but, again like the majority, something down deep in me said, "Who knows, there may be something in it!" And then, I was only twenty, and alone and friendless in New York. I had seen Professor Thelma's advertisement in the paper several times: "Reads your life like an open book; gives advice,” etc., etc. And certainly I wanted some advice badly.

His parlor was in a brownstone-front house on Forty-fifth Street, just off Broadway. The glass shingle that hung inside the front window bore only the inscription "Thelma ;" that and nothing more. There was no appeal to a passing trade. A red-haired, boyish young man opened the door, ushered me into the front room, explained that the Professor would see me presently, and then disappeared down the hallway. Presently the folding doors opened and the Professor appeared.

There was nothing of the mystic in his personal appearance; he might have been a family physician. He was small, elderly, with a fringe of gray hair about a bald head, clean shaven save for a small black mustache; he had a kindly, wrinkled face, and he was plainly dressed in black save for a white vest, across which hung a chain of fivedollar gold pieces. He greeted me with a pleasant smile and ushered me into the read

ing-room. The two windows overlooking the back yard had their shades half drawn, making the room quite gloomy, but otherwise there was nothing "spooky" about it; the furniture was plain and conventional. As I realized later, Professor Thelma catered to a high-class clientele.

We sat down for the reading at a plain, square table, one side of which was up against the wall. I said:

"I am in trouble, and I want to see what you can do for me.”

He did not answer me immediately, but sat looking at me across the table, scrutinizing me closely. There was a small hourglass just in front of him, on the table. He turned it over and watched the running sand.

"I don't guarantee success," he said at last, but I think I can help you. We'll make a test." He got up from the table, went over to a typewriter that stood by the window and began typing. He finished quickly, folded the slip of paper twice, and came back to the table.

On this piece of paper," he began, "which I have here in my hand I have written something closely concerning your trouble. I want you to take this pad and jot down something pertaining to your lifenames, or whatever you like. Then fold your paper and put it away without my seeing it. When you've done that, I'll show you what I've written here and you can judge for yourself whether I can help you."

I did as he told me; took the paper pad, wrote two names, my own and another person's, folded the paper, and put it into my pocket. Meanwhile he had turned the hourglass and was studying it again. Suddenly he picked up the folded slip of paper on which he had typed and passed it over to me. I opened it; there, in plain typewriting, were the two names I had written.

Well, Miss Morris," he said, “am I right?"

"You certainly are," I replied, and I was mystified. There seemed no doubt that he had anticipated, by at least three minutes, what I was going to write.

The Professor was silent a while; he seemed to be studying the running sand in the hour-glass, but I was conscious that he watched me closely from the corners of his eyes.

Your affairs are certainly in a tangle," he said. at last. "This man, Tom Jones, has been playing a very important part in your

life, but now he seems to be turning away from you. I think it has been your fault. He thinks you have been cold toward him you have seemed to avoid him. Still, if you care to undertake three or four readings, I am sure I can bring him back into your life."

My budding faith vanished; I saw what he was driving at. I could hardly keep from laughing.

"Professor," I said, "you are making some mistake. Mr. Jones has six children, one of whom is older than I am. You were right in that he may think I was avoiding him. He is my landlord, and I owe him two months' rent."

The Professor frowned.

"Have you been trying to catch me?" he demanded. I began laughing, and presently

he was smiling too.

"I see your trouble now," he said. "You are out of a job.”

From then on he dropped the mystic and chatted with me like a man and not a clairvoyant. He was old enough to be my father, and I enjoyed the talk; he began giving me real, human advice. Finally, when I rose to go, I laid a dollar bill down on the table. He smiled at the bill and handed it back to me.

"Give it to Tom Jones," he said. I was going out of the door, when he callled me back. Look here," he said, suddenly. “you seem pretty clever. Why not learn this business? My present assistant ought to be doing pick-and-shovel work. I'll give you ten dollars a week while you're learning. Later on there'll be plenty of money in it.”

I wanted work badly, so I accepted. Next morning, early, before the day's business began, I turned up to begin my apprenticeship.

"Take a look at that mirror," said the Professor, as soon as I had taken off my hat. He pointed to a long mirror in a massive frame that hung up against the wall, just over one side of the reading table. Do you see anything peculiar about it ?" It seemed to me an ordinary mirror, and I said so.

"All right; now come into the next room." He opened a door behind a hanging, and then I discovered, what I had not suspected before, that the wall against which the mirror hung was only a thin board partition, papered over to correspond with the other three walls of the reading-room and separating it from a small alcove about the size of a hall bedroom. In fact, it had once been a hall bedroom at the end of the front hallway.

A shade was drawn down over the one window in the rear; so the little room was quite dark. Over against the partition, corresponding to the point where the mirror was suspended in the next room, was a sort of booth, formed of hanging, black curtains.

I

"Just step inside," said the Professor. drew back a hanging and went in. I seemed to be looking through a window into the reading-room; the mirror was only plain plate glass. Just below was the reading table. In a flash I understood. While I had written the two names on the pad, somebody had stood inside this booth and seen plainly what I was writing. I looked outside the booth: there was another typewriter in this small room. Naturally, I had not seen the confederate; with all this black drapery behind it, the plate glass had all the appearance of a mirror.

"When the reading begins," explained the Professor, "you step inside, from the side, so that no light strikes the glass from in back. Then you copy down what the person writes, rush over to the typewriter, type it off, fold the paper twice, insert it in the cleft in the end of this stick and shove it through this hole in the partition. It comes out just under my side of the table, and while I am looking at the hour-glass I substitute your paper for mine, which is only a dummy. And, remember, everything depends on quickness."

What other tricks Professor Thelma employed were simply variations of this one. Sometimes he would not use the typewriter at all. The client would write, while he stood looking out of the window. Then I would copy the client's notes, slip them through, he would return to the table, seem to study the hour-glass, but really be reading my notes. Then he would talk to the client, using the notes as a basis. Usually the people wrote their own names; then to have him suddenly address them by name would produce a profound impression. I have never known these tricks fail in their result; I have seen apparently sensible women faint because of the nervous excitement they produced. Naturally, after that the Professor could do what he liked with them; the rest was simply cleverness in reading facial expression and sizing up individual character.

It was not long before I realized what a tremendous business Professor Thelma did. He had hardly finished instructing me in the mechanical basis of his tricks when a richly gowned woman, blazing in diamonds, came in for a reading, and I did my end of the

business without a slip. Immediately after another came; we were hardly alone for five minutes during the day-even through the lunch hour. During the first week, before the Professor could trust me to handle the clients alone, he had to slip into my room to eat a few sandwiches instead of going out to lunch. Of course I never became as expert as he, but my training progressed, and by the end of a week I could take his place at the table.

One of my first lessons was in sizing up individuals, but fortunately that came natural to me. I soon saw that you could roughly classify the clients by the time of day when they came. In the morning came the wealthy, bejeweled women, with nothing to do. In the afternoon we got the middle-class women, who had household duties that kept them at home in the morning. And in the evening came the business men and the working classes, of both sexes; clerks, stenographers, shop-girls, and even factory workers.

But that is only a very rough classification. The great revelation to me was not the humbug of the business, nor even the great numbers who came, but the credulity of the apparently high types of people who were as easily humbugged as the humblest servantgirls. I am now convinced that a majority of our educated people, while openly laughing at palmistry, fortune-telling, clairvoyance, and love-charms as relics of the superstitions of the Middle Ages, secretly believe in them.

Naturally, I am not going to give any names, but among Professor Thelma's regu lar clients were men and women whose names are familiar to the public. Most of the men of this higher class were prosperous business men who came to consult the Professor about new business ventures. One was a man whose name is known to every man, woman, and child in this country as the maker of a much-advertised article. Another was a young lawyer whose name I have repeatedly seen in the papers in connection with big criminal cases. In his profession I suppose he must have been very clever, but to me, studying him from behind the magic mirror, he seemed about as credulous a fool as I have ever known. In his first reading the Professor accidentally told him that he had undeveloped powers of "second sight." And could it be developed, Professor ?" he asked. Of course the Professor said that it could-through a course of "readings," which would cost ten dollars a reading.

There are seven stages," said the Professor. "Most people are in the first stage, but you are already in the third. Each stage is more difficult to pass than the one before it."

So the young lawyer began to come to have his second sight" developed; and, altogether, I think the Professor got several hundred dollars out of him.

Another regular though not quite so frequent client was a Wall Street broker who came for advice in business deals; he really thought the Professor could predict the rise and fall of the stock market. He paid liberally for his readings, but I know that the Professor was the one to get the benefits. He welcomed Wall Street clients, and never gave them any opportunity to suspect that he was overcharging them; he always left the size of the fee to them. All the clairvoyants were after this trade; but, as I learned later, there were two or three clairvoyants who almost monopolized it and were making their own fortunes on the credulity of Wall Street brokers.

Among the women who came almost daily for a long period was a famous actress who was then running a whole season in a Broadway theater just around the corner from us. pleased was she with our readings that she sent almost every member of her company around.

So

It may seem incredible, but among just such types of people, of high professional standing, we did a big business in charms and love philters and balms. To the young lawyer I have mentioned, we sold a salve which he was to rub into his chest just over his heart to ease the pain from a love affair he had had. I had prepared the salve, or ** balm,” myself, just as I prepared them all; it was composed of nothing but potato pulp. Sometimes I used turnip. The love powders were plain baking soda. We did a thriving mail order business in these commodities.

But making notes behind the magic mirror and preparing love potions were not my only duties. After the mechanical trickery had produced the first impression on the client, the reading might last twenty minutes or half an hour. Having done my part, I would slip on my hat, coat, and gloves, pass out into the front hallway and enter the reception room. There I would sit, apparently a client myself, getting into conversation with the other clients. That was never difficult; I hardly ever had to speak first. I would usually choose the prosperous-looking women who would pay well if very deeply impressed.

Wonderful! He really frightens me at times. Everything he has ever told me has come true." Then I would become very confidential and tell how the Professor had delved into my life. Confidence begets confidence, and soon I would know as much about that woman's affairs as she knew herself. Then, when the folding doors opened, I would slip back to my room, and before that woman had seated herself at the table I would have jotted down the salient facts she had given me and slipped them through to the Professor, which he would read while apparently studying the hour-glass. And the Professor could handle those facts cleverly; he would not fling them crudely at his subject, but play with them, twist them about, rearrange them, until he had worked the poor woman up to a point bordering on nervous hysteria.

It was

With all his shrewdness, the Professor had one weakness which would have hampered him greatly had he been alone: he could not remember faces. To his delight he soon found that I never forgot a face. very important to remember, for it was those who came again who proved the most profitable. Naturally, not to have recognized them would have looked bad in one with the Professor's occult powers. So whenever I recognized a visitor as having been there before, I would tip the Professor off. We had a regularly worked out cipher code; 28 on the paper I slipped in meant "A fresh one; never here before." That would usually be an answer to a signal from the Professor; he rubbed the back of his head when he wanted to know "Has this one been here before?" 33 meant "Here once before:" 44 signified "Been here several times;" an 8 added indicated that on previous occasions this client had paid liberally. 52, on the contrary, meant "Don't fool with this one; hasn't much money." If necessary I would jot down a few added details. Before the client had finished his or her introductory remarks the Professor would be fully posted.

Some of the cases we had stand out very clearly in my memory. I think it was I who first noticed that two of our regular clients were related to each other-husband and wife. He was a Bronx policeman and had had a violent quarrel with his wife, and he