sence, therefore, of representatives from these two universities at any rate was not due to indifference. The conference, after vigorous discussion, chose a committee of seven to co-operate, if permitted, with the present Rules Committee in revising the game, and to urge the production of an "open game,' "the elimination of rough and brutal playing, the efficient enforcement of rules, and the organization of a permanent body of officials. More important, however, than any specific result is the evidence afforded by this conference that college and university authorities are at last assuming the responsibility for ethical standards in intercollegiate athletics which they ought never to have shirked. When President Hadley in his letter said, "Football at Yale is controlled by graduates, rather than by the faculty," he revealed the cause of most athletic abuses in most colleges. It is to be hoped that football reform will go beyond the rules concerning interference and downs and scrimmages and forward passes, and that it will reach the minds of college professors and in

structors.

The South lost one of its Chancellor Hill bravest and sanest leaders last week. Chancellor Walter B. Hill, of the University of Georgia, was eminent among the men whose service to the Nation has been invaluable during these years of reunion. Born in 1851, too late to participate in the war, and yet early enough to know the humiliation that followed the triumph of Northern armies, he knew, as men older and men younger than he were not likely to know, how deep was the pit out of which the South had patiently to drag herself. Trained for the law, he became six years ago the head of the University of which he was a graduate. During these six years he has been far more than a college president; he has been a trainer of the public conscience, an advocate of popular education, an interpreter to the North of the ideals of the South, a happy and energetic contributor to the process by which for a generation the Nation has been finding itself as a Nation. The service he rendered through the South

ern Education Board has been invaluable. He had a style distinguished for clearness, and he wrote and spoke with a humor that is too rare among men who recognize, as he did, the seriousness of the problems at which they are working. His death, in middle age, is a severe loss to those forces which, in spite of a surviving unlovely sectionalism, are putting the best qualities of all sections to the Nation's use.

Consular. Reform

The consular service is pre-eminently a commercial service. It aids the Nation's foreign trade. It is, in general, rarely to be confounded with diplomacy, in the strict sense of that word, and almost never with politics. It should be organized as a home commercial house would organize its branches abroad.

To be efficient the system needs, first, to be self-respecting. It needs to be divorced from politics. At present an unholy alliance exists between it and politics-the spoils system. "To the victor belong the spoils." A victorious political leader presents his sub-leaders to the President for appointment somewhere, preferably to any comfortable berth in the consular service, not because of any demonstrated competency on their part to perform the duties of a given position in that service, but merely as a haphazard reward for party fidelity. Under these circumstances, no matter how fair to every one a conscientious Executive tries to be, the result is often a misfit; and in some cases our consulates have been disgraced by unworthy men. In any case, however, appointees generally have to learn their business after arriving at their posts abroad, the majority of the appointees not even having a knowledge of the language of the country. Such appointments benefit no one, and are ultimately a source of party weakness rather than of party strength.

Secondly, to be efficient the consular service must be a paying one. It is true that a large income rewards the fortunate holder of some few consular positions, but the average income is

too small. There is not sufficient financial inducement to ambitious young men to enter upon a consular career when most of those now in it are underpaid.

Thirdly, to be efficient, the service should be permanent. The average consular officer regards the retention of his place as conditional upon guarding his political influence at home rather than upon developing his own efficiency abroad. Hence the protection of the home influence becomes the consul's first interest, the promotion of trade abroad a secondary consideration. Instead of being bound to such an absurd system, so long as he gives evidence of good behavior, the American consular officer should be sure of retention in office, and on evidence of marked merit he should have a right to expect advancement. Our consular service should be what it has never been, a career; and to be that it must be self-respecting, paying, and permanent.

This is not saying that it is not now better than it has been. After Mr. Hay became Secretary of State a policy of promotion was inaugurated both in the consular and diplomatic services. Men of proved qualifications were advanced to important posts. It was also noticeable both that the commercial information obtained by our consuls abroad became more practical in character, and that there was greater celerity in giving it to the public. After Mr. Roosevelt became President there was also increasing evidence both that first appointments were being given to applicants whose credentials indicated ability rather than influence, and that the morale of the whole service was being toned up and improved.

It might be assumed that, as reforms have already been effected by executive order and otherwise, statutory enactment is not necessary. But until these principles are embodied in law they cannot be safe from possible future harm under some reactionary President. Furthermore, for other necessary improvements in the direction of systemization, legislative authority is of course absolutely essential. Year by year, therefore, we have seen vain attempts to get Congress to accept consular reform; in the

words of a leading journal, it has become "a monotonous demand." This year, however, it is not so monotonous as usual, for Congress seems nearer than ever before to providing for an improved service-this because Congressmen appear to have more general and genuine interest in the subject, and also because the influences of the infamous old spoils system are not so evident.

The salient features of the present measure, now before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, are: (1) A classification within one year of all consular offices in fixed grades; the present members of the force to be assigned to these; consular salaries also to be classified on a more adequate basis; (2) original appointments to be made by examination; no one to be examined who is under twenty-one or over forty years old (the age-limit of previous bills, forty-five and fifty-five years, might have been preferable); among the subjects for examination one other modern language than English to be included; (3) original appointments to be made only to the lower grades; a freedom to be provided for in the transference of men from one place to another in the same grade; to countries in which the consul exercises judicial functions, no one to be sent until he shall have passed an examination in law; (4) places in the higher grades to be filled by promotion from the lower; (5) a consular inspection service to be provided-somewhat like that of the bank examiners to our National banks; (6) clerks to consulates who command a salary exceeding a thousand dollars a year to be American citizens; (7) consular officers not to engage in business on their own account; (8) fees received to be accounted for and paid into the Treasury.

Some such measure is more nearly in line with what Congress would grant, we believe, than has been any previous bill. Hence, constituents at home, whether citizens or corporations, who favor consular reform should write to their Senators and Representatives. Every citizen or commercial body in the United States is interested in the improvement of our consular service. The measure now before the Senate Committee would

benefit both the Government and our consular officers. The Government would no longer be harassed by complex and unsystematic service; it would be delivered from much of the influence of the spoils system; and would provide in the service itself such a consular trainingschool that succeeding Congresses would, by additional legislation, seek to emphasize the policy simply as a matter of trade advancement. To our consular officers and to possible applicants the effect of such a law would be equally beneficial. Those in the service who have proved their efficiency would receive recognition and secure retention, while young men, meditating upon their coming work in life, would be warranted in finally including the consular service among the careers that are self-respecting, paying, and permanent.

him, was not a man of profound erudition, but he was a true Humanist, which is far better. A simple teacher in a small community, he lived in and with his authors, and taught not only the form but the soul of a language. A great Grecian once said, in response to a disparaging remark about Mr. Gladstone's scholarship, that he lived with Homer. Professor North not only knew his authors, but lived with them. His relations with classic writers were so close that he unconsciously expressed in his teaching the kind of liking or repulsion which most of us feel only for the living. He spoke of Æschines as if he were a neighbor of an unlovely kind, and his regard for Herodotus was tempered by his feeling that the father of history was a good deal of a gossip! Scholarship never became to him an impersonal pursuit, nor the books he taught mere material for linguistic and grammatical instruc

Life'

There comes from the press now and again a volume of letters or memoirs which make us aware that the quiet life is not only strenuously preached but happily lived in our noisy age. There are still places where old-fashioned flowers bloom and old-fashioned people read the old books and practice the old virtues and keep intact the tradition of the old manners. There are, indeed, a surprising number of such people, if they could be counted by the census-takers; but a cardinal principle of their faith and practice is to keep out of sight. There are many modest men and women who cannot enjoy this luxury because their occupations have more or less publicity; but the scholar's work, as a rule, escapes the eye of the reporter and goes unrecorded by the newspaper.

Such a life was led in the delightful village of Clinton, in one of the most beautiful pastoral sections of New York, by Professor Edward North, who died two years ago, after a service of more than half a century. "Old Greek," as the Hamilton students affectionately called

1" Old Greek" An Old-Time Professor in an Old

Fashioned College. By S. N. D. North. McClure,

Phillips & Co., New York.

substance in books which has power to keep a dead language alive. This has been the distinguishing mark of the true Humanists from the days of Manuel

Chrysoloras to those of Dr. Jowett; they owe much to the pedants, but are as distinctly of another race as are the poets who give words wings from the philologists who dig up their roots. His attiboth vocation and avocation to him, is tude towards his profession, which was suggested by this quotation from the "Memorabilia " written on the title-page of his "Index Rerum:"

The treasures of the wise men of long ago, which they recorded in books and left behind, I unroll and peruse in company with my friends; and if we see anything good, we choose it out, and we esteem it a great gain if we prove helpful to one another.

Professor North was happy in the circumstances of his life. He lived in small college which has always had a a beautiful town, in the atmosphere of a ing and the service of able teachers; generous element of culture in its train

his home overflowed with books; and he opened his windows on an ample garden! It fills one with envy to think of his leisure, his reading, and his flowers. So full was the stream of his life

that it continually overflowed the limits

of his occupation in all manner of records in prose and verse, memoranda of his studies, comments and criticisms; he had time to fill scrap-books and to keep journals; to make a report of himself to himself, and so to retain an objective impression of his own growth. The men who have the chance of working in many fields are far more numerous than those who have the chance of reaping where they have sown. Professor North was one of the fortunate few who can both wander and wait; who can roam afield and come home at nightfall or at summer's end with the ripened grain. He slowly and quietly mellowed on the sunny side of the wall.

If he had been less content with his conditions, he would have been more widely known; for he had not only the

fulness to trusts, of men who have had great opportunities of setting fidelity and purity of character before young men and have tragically failed to see and to practice virtues which give life its sweetness and society its moral dignity. These men have made life meaner; Professor North made it richer and finer. It might be said of him, as was said of one of his contemporaries in England, “he was a widener." And he might have made his own the words used by this contemporary English scholar of those Humanities which are the soul of scholarship and literature: "Suffer no chasm to interrupt this glorious tradition . . . Continuous life . . . that is what we want to feel the pulses of hearts that are now dead."

He never mistook knowledge for original material; he enriched himself with it. He had humor, wit, sentiment, keen observation, aptitude for sound criticism, and the knack of saying things happily. His addresses on those occasions which appeal to men of generous ideals and sentiment were felicitous because they were so full of his own personality. His simplicity, sincerity, and kindliness, combined with his scholarship, ability, and vigor of character, commanded the respect of his students and gave his relations with them a geniality and ease which were no small element in the college education. As President of the Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity, one of the most important of the Greek letter societies, which was organized at Hamilton College in 1832, Professor North was widely known and as widely honored by a host of college men in all parts of the country. Like all men of imagination, he had a great deal of the boy in him, and was on easy terms with youth to the day of his death.

It is wholesome to read the record of such a life as Professor North's at a time when so many careers are wrecked at the summit of the years by false valuations of the things of life; his clear integrity, intelligent aims, liberal tastes, and quiet harvest of peace and honor stand in striking contrast with the stained names, the discredited wealth, the unfaith

Adam Smith, father of modern political economy, said: "A guinea may be considered as a bill for a certain quantity of necessaries or conveniences upon all the tradesmen of the neighborhood." In other words, a sum of money, large or small, is an order payable to the bearer for a proportionate amount of service. Men wish to have these orders presented to them, that they may make a living by filling them. This conception of money is the fundamental requisite for its ethical treatment. It was remarked by Mr. Gladstone that a man's mental and moral character is largely revealed in the way he deals with money.

Most people think of money simply as a means for getting themselves served with whatever they desire. Everybody knows that he cannot, except by robbery, get the coveted money-order for service without some giving of service, more or less, real or fictitious. But to care more for getting the money than for giving its full equivalent in service is to have started on the down grade to robbery in a predatory state of mind. That money when not the gift of affection is held by no moral right, except as earned by a proportionate amount of service, is an elementary moral truth. In defiance of it an enormous amount of predatory wealth has been accumulated in recent years. A financial "operator" has tes

tified in a Boston court that he and his partners "made" $46,000,000 by promoting a certain trust. Fancy, if possible, the vast total of services by all sorts of men to which that staggering sum gave legal claim! From such enormities public indignation, class hatred, and social danger spring. Lowell remarked that there is dynamite enough in the New Testament to shatter our social system, if not carefully handled. Jesus' saying, "The Son of man came not to be served but to serve," is true of every son of man. "He that is great among you shall be your servant" is a fundamental law of the Republic of God. Essential to social stability as well as to personal integrity is an ethical valuation of money as the measure of service in equal reciprocity between man and man.

This requires the service rendered to be balanced by a sum of money good for an equivalent amount of service, and no more. The rule is incontestable. The courts continually apply it in scaling down excessive claims for service rendered. In applying it, or any other rule, we expect to meet problems. So all agree in the general principle of justice, "To every one his own," but in a given case we divide upon its practical application. Here, then, we encounter the crucial question, What is the true criterion of the money value required to measure the just exchange of equivalent services? The service rendered has saved life or limb. Shall its just compensation be measured by the value of life or limb? It has saved an estate, it has vindicated a good name, by bringing the spoiler or the slanderer to justice. Is the benefit value of such service to its receiver the true criterion of the compensation due? To affirm this is simply to charter extortion limited only by the resources of its victims, like the recent reported charge by a New York surgeon of seven thousand dollars for operating on a common case of appendicitis. The claim to profit proportionately to the peril or distress which service may relieve is an inhuman claim, commending itself only to coiners of cash out of human woe, like the cartmen who demanded a dollar a minute for salvage service while Baltimore was burning. The only crite

rion compatible with the social spirit of unsophisticated humanity is the cost value of the service to its giver.

In so saying it is not forgotten that service-givers differ in efficiency. One will spend two days in doing what another will do in one. The cost of inefficiency is not to be added to the cost of service. The trade-union rule of restricting the output of service to the capacity of the backward is morally indefensible. But one cannot here discuss particular applications of the general principle which none who accepts the authority of the Supreme Moral Teacher of the world can consistently deny. As in the case of his Golden Rule, loyalty to the principle must be trusted for its practical working out. Here, however, one cau-. tion is to be borne in mind: the cost value of service must be as comprehensively reckoned for the weaker as for the stronger givers of service. That it is not yet so an unimpeachable economic authority has observed. Says Carroll D. Wright: "Capital charges to the consumer the depreciation of property and machinery. Why should not the depreciation of human machinery, its hands, its brain, its body, be included in the final cost?" The list is suggestively incomplete. Should not the laborer's cost of service include also provision for a sanitary home, and for the exemption of his children from being taken out of school to earn their bread? How inordinately in contrast with the scrimping of the weaker part of the community the cost of service has been figured for the profit of the stronger has recently been glaringly revealed upon the witness-stand. It even poses as "reform when the president of a company organized for the benefit of widows and orphans accepts a salary "reduced " to a sum eight times larger than the salary of the Governor of the Bank of England.

But men greatly vary in ability, and ability enhances the value of service to the receiver. Does it not deserve proportionate return to the giver? In a moral estimate this depends on what it has cost the giver. So far as his ability is the product of laborious and expensive preparation and culture, it has cost him something, and has justly earned a