declared to be an imperative need, the renewal of the Chinese exclusion act was demanded, and nearly all the remainder of the platform was devoted to the tariff and to trusts. On the trust question the platform welcomed combinations of both labor and capital, but declared that the creation of monopolies to control prices or restrict production must in some unspecified way be prevented. The only State issue presented was in a plank condemning the "single tax" proposal to concentrate taxation upon real estate. This declaration was aimed at Mayor Johnson, of Cleveland. In making up the ticket, Lieutenant-Governor Caldwell, whose relations with the brewers caused him to run over thirty thousand votes behind his ticket two years ago, relieved the Convention of embarrassment by declining renomination. His retirement was a triumph of the Anti-Saloon League, but the League was chagrined to have his place filled by Senator Nippert, of Cincinnati, who voted against the local option bill in the last Legislature.

The only social justificaGreater New York tion for the political Really United change which made Brooklyn, Staten Island, and other suburbs of New York City part of the greater city, at the sacrifice of their local inde pendence, was that the unification promised the rapid development of the means of intercommunication between all parts of the great metropolis. This promise. is now being fulfilled even more systematically than the supporters of the consolidation act anticipated. A second bridge connecting New York with Brooklyn is already nearing completion, and within a few weeks the Rapid Transit Commission took the final steps to insure the construction of a tunnel from the downtown business district of Manhattan borough with the terminus of the Long Island road in the center of Brooklyr. These two enterprises alone made possible a vastly wider and better distribution of the people of the metropolis. Mr. Beecher fifteen years ago predicted the rapid growth of Brooklyn on the ground that "

Manhattan is a bottle-when it is full it is full; but Brooklyn has all Long Island to spread over." Up to the

present year this statement of the case has remained only a half-truth because the time required to reach Brooklyn save at the one overcrowded bridge has prevented the spreading over Long Island, and the population which ought to have overflowed the limits of Manhattan has been forced back upon it, being "accommo‐ dated" in the five-story tenements and apartment-houses which have been taking the place of the old three-story dwellings. With the new bridge and the new municipal tunnel, additional thousands of families may find homes in Long Island. But the expansion is to go further than these public enterprises assure. Last week President Baldwin, of the Long Island Railway, announced that his company would construct still another tunnel from the center of the uptown business district in Manhattan (Herald Square, at the junction of Broadway and Thirty-fourth Street) to the upper western terminus of his road at Long Island City. This second piece of work, according to the Brooklyn" Eagle," is ultimately to be supplemented by a belt line of floats and bridges connecting the New Jersey terminals of the Pennsylvania road with the Long Island system, and thence with the New York, New Haven, and Hartford road. However remote the execution of the latter part of the plan, the assured construction of the Herald Square and Long Island City tunnel puts nearly every part of Greater New York within forty minutes' ride of every other part.

Separate Homes for More Families

The social significance of the new transit facilities is not easily overestimated. estimated. What city workingmen have gained through the shortening of the hours of labor has in large measure been lost through the increased time required to reach their work and return to their homes-unless their homes are in neighboring tenements. Even the workmen who have gained the nine-hour day for which the machinists are now striking cannot afford to live more than forty minutes from their work, or else their hours away from home are really longer than those of their fathers in the rural districts. So long as the workmen of New York had to rely on horse-cars and

ferries, forty minutes' time did not permit them to live more than three or four miles from their work. When the horse-cars were superseded by the elevated roads and trolleys, they might live five or six miles away without sacrificing more than forty minutes night and morning. But But when the slow ride across the ferries is superseded by the quick ride across a bridge or through a tunnel, and the rest of their journey is by underground rapid transit or steam railroads, the allowance of forty minutes' time permits them to reach. homes twelve or even fifteen miles away. The effect of these changes upon the necessary overcrowding of the population is easily figured. Within three miles of the City Hall, making allowance for the portion covered by water, there is only one city lot (25 by 100 feet) for every four families. The tenement-house was therefore a necessity. Within twelve miles of the City Hall there are four lots for every family, and a home with a yard or garden is again put within the reach of the working people.

Established

The final testimony to The Torrens System the complete success of the Torrens system of registering real estate titles was given at the last monthly meeting of the Chicago Real Estate Board, when its committee on the system reported, not only its grow ing popularity, but also that practically all lenders of money were willing to make mortgage loans on the security of certificates issued by the county registrar under the law, without further inquiry into the validity of the titles covered. Such complete acceptance of the system by the bankers means that it is now almost as securely established in Illinois as in Australia, and we may expect that it will make headway in this country almost as rapidly as did that other Australian system, the official ballot, after its merits had been tested in Massachusetts. Massachusetts, too, it may be recalled, has already accepted the Torrens system, and so has Minnesota, by an act of the last Legislature. Under the Torrens system titles to real estate are for a small fee made the object of an official search, and a certificate issued guaranteeing the title to the owner. After this official certificate has once been issued. the property may be sold and mortgaged

again and again, by merely entering the transaction upon the certificate, without the need of any subsequent investigation of its validity, whereas under the traditional system-or rather "jungle," as Cromwell called it-it is necessary for each purchaser or mortgagee of real estate to institute a new and costly search, going back over all the work of preceding purchasers and mortgagees. The story of a title, it has been said, is now told in the same fashion that the story of "The House that Jack Built "is told to children. Hereafter it will be possible to record that the cock woke the priest without rehearsing the early episodes between the dog and the cat, the cat and the rat, the rat and the malt.

The battle in the Chicago Free Text-Books Board of Education on in Chicago introducing free text-books in primary grades in the public schools has now been ended by the adoption of the free text-book resolution by a vote of 13 to 3. The opposition to this resolution, it will be recalled, came, not from the large taxpayers, but from the church societies supporting parochial schools-the German Catholics and the German Lutherans constituting the real strength of the opposition. The representatives of these societies expressed their willingness that the Board should continue to supply free text-books to children whose parents professed inability to pay; but the majority of the Board believed that this provision did not meet the situation, since the better and more self-respecting class of the poor did not wish to plead poverty, and often kept their children out of school because of the expense of the text-books. The resolution adopted by the Board states that one of the objects of the measure was to protect the interests of the taxpayers, as well as to widen the opportunities of free education. The first of these phrases is hardly accurate, for the large taxpayers at least will find the resolution a source of expense. The great body of small taxpayers, however, and the general public will find it a measure of economy, since text-books can be purchased through the Board, and furnished directly to the pu pils, to be used until they are worn out,

at much less expense than they can be bought by parents for their children. Inasmuch as the church schools generally find it necessary to offer their pupils about the same terms that the public schools offer, the new system will materially increase the difficulty of maintaining parochial school systems. It was probably because of these anticipated burdens that the German Catholic Federated Societies and a large part of the German Lutheran clergy resisted the innovation. It is reported that the federated societies will appeal to the courts for an injunction restraining the Board from carrying the resolution into effect; but when we recall the result of the contest waged more strongly by kindred German societies against the establishment of the free school system in Pennsylvania, two generations ago, there seems little question as to the outcome of the present contest. The trustees presenting the resolution in favor of the free text-books reported that wherever the system had been adopted it had resulted in increased attendance, longer attendance, and the lessening of educational expenses to the general public.

Commencement at Harvard and Yale

Both at Harvard and at Yale the first year of the new century was made brilliantly auspicious for university expansion by the rich gifts to each announced last week at Commencement. The ag gregate gifts to Harvard for the year amounted to over $780,000, the largest item of which is nearly half a million given by Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Robinson, of New York, for the School of Architecture, in memory of their deceased son, a member of the class of 1900. Superadded to these was the gift, announced by President Eliot at the alumni dinner, of a million from Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan for the prosecution of applied biological research. Mr. Morgan's gift is a memorial to Mr. Junius Spencer Morgan, of London, for many years a Boston merchant. It secures the erection of three buildings of the five planned for the Harvard Medical School on a tract of twenty acres at Longwood, the estimated cost of the whole being two millions. The School is flourishing, having graduated a

hundred and fifty this year. The Robinson memorial gift, which includes a new building with its equipment, and maintenance of the teaching force, Dr. Eliot termed as well conceived and complete a gift as was ever given to a university. He anticipated that the gift of Mr. Morgan would lead to further advances on the recent brilliant achievements of medical science. At Yale great enthusiasm was aroused by President Hadley's statement that the Bicentennial Fund of two millions was now practically assured. The best feature of it, in his view, was the large rally of the alumni which it exhibited-more than seventeen hundred contributors, mostly of comparatively small sums, and none of a larger sum than $150,000, not counting the proceeds of the long litigated Lampson bequest, some $450,000. The $300,000 which had been pledged conditionally, and is now secure, was announced as given by Messrs. James J. Hill, Matthew C. D. Borden, and Frederick Vanderbilt. The prominence of women in the list of recent benefactors of the University is noticeable. Among these the Misses Stokes, of this city, have given Woodbridge Hall, the new administration building, now near completion; and Mrs. A. M. Byers, of Allegheny, Pa., has marked a new era in the history of the Sheffield Scientific School by the gift of a building which will serve as a center, hitherto lacking, for the collegiate life of the School. This building, to stand adjacent to the new auditorium, which President Hadley proposes to call "Woolsey Hall," is to contain club-rooms and students' living-rooms, with an entire story devoted to the use of the Young Men's Christian Association of the School. It is a memorial to the donor's son, Mr. Alexander Byers, a graduate in the class of 1894. While President Hadley has declined to push the erection of the bicentennial buildings any faster than the funds for payment came forward, University Hall, the largest of them, is now so near completion that an adequate theater for the great commemoration, October 20-23, is now assured. The first note of that event has been already struck by the publication of three volumes of the twenty-nine prepared by Yale professors as Festschriften, to illustrate the work of Yale in the

advancement of knowledge, the means for which are, we believe, provided by an unknown donor.

The present form of A Comparative View the Commencement exercises shows less of a break with the old order at Harvard than at Yale. At Harvard the graduating class still sends as many as four representatives to the academic platform, and the Latin Salutatory, pronounced by one of these, still maintains the traditional honor of that language as the cosmopolitan tongue of the republic of letters. At Yale all this is changed; Commencement Latin is dead; representatives of the graduating classes. ascend the platform only to receive their B.A. diplomas; the time formerly consumed by the young orators is employed by the President in relating the memorabilia of the year. A further break with venerable traditions is manifest at Yale in the presence of young women with young men in the double line of capped and gowned expectants of degrees, through which the procession of alumni pass into the place of assembly-this year, and for the last time, the Battell Chapel. Forty years ago Yale conferred on three men the degree of Doctor of Philosophy for the first time that it was given in this country to post-graduate students. This year thirty-nine received the same, and nine of these were women. In this respect Yale has broken with traditions to which Harvard still adheres for Harvard grants no degrees to women. Dr. Hadley explicitly corrected the reports that recent changes looked toward a shortening of the academic course to three years. Such a result could only ensue in rare cases. Comparing the somewhat similar regulations at Yale and at Harvard, he said: "The number of hours of work required of the student here is very much greater than there; so that a shortening which is easy and frequent at Harvard is likely to prove difficult and exceptional at Yale." The various utterances of President Hadley during Commencement week, whether of a formal or informal type, were remarkable for nothing more than for the strong note of religious conviction frequently struck. The break with Yale tradition

made by calling him, a layman, to the President's chair, has made no change of tone in this respect, but rather a deepening of impression, In speaking of the need of new methods in theological instruction to meet modern exigencies, such words as these from him carry greater popular weight than from any clergyman:

That theological school will take the lead in the development of the whole country which shall know how to send out a body of to-day what the ministers of three hundred men who can do for the Puritanism of America years ago did for the Puritanism of England. We must have men who can awaken that spirituality and nobleness of purpose which runs through the American people, not by formulas the past age, still less by accessories which are and methods which satisfy the condition of but unimportant incidents in the church work of any age whatever; but by an appeal to that religious sentiment to which no strong nation has ever failed to respond.

Some Academic Degrees

Among the honorary degrees conferred recently the LL.D. bestowed at Harvard upon the German Ambassador is worthy of special note for the sentiments of international regard expressed both in the giving and the receiving of it. President Eliot conferred it with these words:

Theodor von Holleben, Ambassador of the young and lusty German Empire, representative of an ancient people whose racial and institutional roots are intertwined with our own-of a people whose scholars and universities have for a century given example and inspiration to the learned world.

Dr. von Holleben, after referring to our In his acknowledgment of the honor White, as an eminent statesman, Ambassador at Berlin, the Hon. A. D. said:

I bring assurances that it is more than books and tunes that my fatherland sends you. It is, first of all, good will and friendship. All Germany feels that the two great branches of the Teutonic race belong together. Among all the academic honors conferred this year none has been more thoroughly deserved than the honorary M. A. bestowed by Columbia upon the Rev. F. D. Gamewell, the Methodist missionary whose engineering skill, acquired in his student days at Cornell before he devoted himself to missionary interests, enabled him to fortify the Legations at Pekin with a skill that won the praise of military experts, and proved to be the salvation of the besieged. Peculiar interest attaches to

the bestowal of degrees at Bowdoin. After conferring LL.D.'s on ex-Senator Wash burn, of Minnesota, and on Senator Gibson, of Montana, Bowdoin College honored that well-known and well-loved woman writer, Sarah Orne Jewett, with the degree of Doctor of Letters.

The temporary tenure not Joseph Cook only of fame but of influence is one of the pathetic and one might almost say one of the tragic incidents of life.

Twenty-five years ago Joseph Cook was lecturing every Monday to an audience which crowded Tremont Temple to its utmost capacity, and in which were a large proportion of ministers and thoughtful laymen. He had studied at Harvard, Leipsic, Berlin, and Heidelberg, and had traveled in most European countries. He

was an omnivorous and tireless reader, possessed a remarkable art of expression, had a forcible and fascinating though not always pleasing personality. Materialism in its various forms had been presented to the American public through a great variety of inaccurate, careless, and halfeducated journalists and magazine writers. Joseph Cook was a brilliant interpreter of spiritual thinking, and. if he was not always accurate and not often profound, the breadth of his scholarship and the brilliancy of his rhetoric made him a very effective interpreter of the best thoughts of the best thinkers whose philosophy was to furnish the counteraction and corrective of materialism. He thus rendered a great and, as we believe, a lasting service, especially to the ministry and churches of the Puritan faith and order, by his lectures in Boston and elsewhere and by their publication and extensive circulation in book form. Unfortunately, he was unable to recognize the legitimacy of any liberalism except his own. When the spiritual life of New England took on philosophical forms no more remote from the ancient creeds than were his own, and yet forms which differed somewhat from his own, the position which he had assumed as "Defender of the Faith" seemed to him to require that he should set himself as vigorously and vehemently against the new faith as he had set himself against the old materialism. From that time he became the rep

resentative of a faction instead of the interpreter of a great school of thought; his influence waned, and his Boston lectures were not long thereafter discontinued. For the last few years he has been little known to the public, but, in our judg ment, a real and important debt is due to him for the service which he rendered between 1874 and 1880.

July 4, 1901

The Fourth of July, 1901, will mean to a portion of the people under the American flag more than the Fourth of July, 1776. It ought to mean to all Americans, and will mean to many of them, a reaffirmation and extension of the principles which have made the Fourth of July a significant National holiday.

The United States is, as the phrase indicates, a union of States. The bonds which bind these several States together in a union are at least four, which we may designate as commercial, legal, international, and political. There is absolute free trade between these States; one State may not put a tax upon imports from another State. There is a judicial tribunal to which all controversies arising between the States may be referred, and its decision is final. The States present a united front to all foreign nations, act in all relations toward foreign nations as one nation, and guarantee to each other mutual protection against foreign assault and against domestic insurrection. Finally, all the people of these States unite in electing a President and Congress to deal authoritatively with such matters as are of common concern. It is evident that one or more of these bonds might exist and not the others. Thus free trade might be established between States legally, internationally, and politically entirely independent of one another; or States might unite, as recently the nations of Christendom have united, in constituting a judicial tribunal to which all differences might be referred, although there was no commercial union binding them together; or States might guarantee one another against peril of war, foreign or domestic, and send troops to one another's assistance--such alliances offensive and defensive have not been uncommon;